


Starting Over

by Photogirl1890



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-31
Updated: 2014-05-22
Packaged: 2018-01-26 03:54:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 65,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1673759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Photogirl1890/pseuds/Photogirl1890
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From “Caretaker” through to “Basics”. Seasons 1 and 2 from a lower decks perspective: Jor, Tabor, other Maquis and Starfleet. With small doses of Paris and Torres for good measure. (Because I can’t leave those two alone.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Star Trek belongs to Paramount/CBS. No copyright infringement is intended.
> 
> Rated T: Some violence and strong language.
> 
> A/N: Back around the beginning of 2014, I had an idea to write about what some of the junior officers/crewmen on Voyager might have been up to in the background of all the events we saw with the senior staff on screen. So, coinciding with a re-watch of the entire seasons 1 - 7 on DVD, I started writing a series spanning piece, not really knowing what I ultimately had in store for the ‘minor’ characters I’d chosen to include. I had in mind a list of episodes that I wanted to focus on (and those changed a little as the piece progressed) and I knew I wanted to follow-up an earlier piece that I’d written (‘Rockfall’). Well, three months or so on, I somehow found myself with 65K+ words and I’d only written as far as ‘Basics’! I do hope to continue on and write the events of seasons 3 – 7 at some point, but, as it stands, this piece spanning seasons 1 and 2 is self-contained.  
> Massive amounts of thanks to Delwin for being a total legend in beta-ing this and providing constant encouragement and advice.

_Caretaker_

She gazed around her assigned quarters. _Her_ quarters. Not a bunkroom shared with half a dozen others. How long had it been since she’d had her own bedroom? And she’d never had the luxury of a bathroom all to herself, not even back home. Before.

Jor pulled off her boots – new, shiny, Starfleet issue – and padded over to the sofa, savouring the feel of carpet under her bare feet. Carpet. How long had it been since she’d stayed in a place that had soft floor coverings? Granted, it wasn’t spongy, luxurious deep pile, but it wasn’t cold and hard like the bare deck plates on the _Val Jean_. And it was clean. When she lifted a foot – just to check – her sole showed not a trace of dark grime.

When she’d first been shown to these quarters an hour ago, a bundle of uniform pushed into her hands, she’d not had time to test out the furniture, only to shower and change before the tetchy Starfleet crewman who’d dropped her off had returned to escort her to deck two. In the mess hall, she’d found a dozen of her Maquis comrades – all looking peculiar and bewildered in their new attire – and a dark-haired human lieutenant striving to make himself heard above the general clamour. There’d been no sign of Chakotay, but Ayala had soon ordered those assembled to ‘shut the hell up’ and listen to the Starfleet officer. There followed a short instructional briefing, and PADDs were handed out wherein the Maquis would find written summaries of the most important points that the lieutenant – Rollins, was his name – had covered: the basics of shipboard etiquette, how to operate various pieces of standard equipment, where to assemble in an emergency, and so on.  

Gingerly, Jor sat down on the sofa, pausing on the edge of the seat for a moment before letting herself sink back into the cushions, closing her eyes to give maximum attention to her sense of touch. And smell. The room had such a clean odour. Or, more to the point, there was no odour at all. It wasn’t that it smelled sterile, like a medical facility or a science lab. The air recyclers were so efficient that the only thing she could smell was the faint odour from the newly-manufactured fabric of her uniform. Her Starfleet uniform. She opened her eyes and looked down at herself. The gold jacket seemed unnaturally bright. When had she last worn anything of a primary colour? After … it had seemed inappropriate to wear anything that wasn’t black or grey – brown or beige, at a push.

And she never wanted to wear red again.

Unlike most of the other quarters that the Maquis had been assigned to, these in which Jor found herself had not been occupied by a member of _Voyager_ ’s Starfleet crew on the journey out from Deep Space Nine. She wasn’t moving into the short-lived home of some poor dead Starfleet sap, killed in the crossing. According to Rollins, the Vulcan crewman who should have occupied these quarters had fallen ill with Tarkalean flu back on DS9 and had not been able to continue on the mission.

Jor had struck lucky on another front, too. Some of the others had to share quarters. This was typical for unranked crewmen on smaller Starfleet vessels apparently. Scuttlebutt was that Chakotay intended to present Janeway with a list of officer candidates to ensure that the Maquis were represented in positions of responsibility throughout the ship. If his suggestions were approved, any of those promoted that were sharing accommodations at present might be moved to single quarters and vice versa. So, Jor tried not to get too used to the idea of a room to herself. Torres, Seska and Henley were the only three other female members of the Maquis aboard. Starfleet propriety was such that male and female crewmen wouldn’t be expected to share quarters except in extreme circumstances.

Torres would be on Chakotay’s list. The half-Klingon was the most inventive engineer Jor had ever met. Seska would make the list too. Henley, on the other hand… Jor could only hope that when things had been settled, she’d have the luck not to get lumbered with Henley again. Some people just didn’t click, however hard they tried, and Jor and Henley were a prime example of that phenomenon.

Closing her eyes once more, Jor shifted around to lie lengthways across the sofa. There was another half hour before she had to report to engineering for further orientation. It seemed that the Starfleet types were in a dilemma, needing help to repair damage done to the ship during the crossing and by the Kazon attack, but first having to familiarise those of the Maquis that were engineers with the Intrepid-class ship’s layout and novel bio-neural circuitry. Of course, Torres would figure all that out in a heartbeat. To her it would all be instinctual, plus she had those two years at the Academy behind her. If Janeway had any sense, she’d put Torres in charge of the whole department right away.

When Chakotay had appeared in _Voyager_ ’s cargo bay to address the gathered and agitated Maquis, there’d been a clamour of incredulity. All manner of colourful suggestions as to what Janeway could do with her uniforms and Starfleet regulations had been offered. Dalby’s proposal had been especially inventive and seconded by an uncharacteristically vocal young Gerron. Seska had wondered if Chakotay might have received a blow to the head and lost his sense of reason. The fact was, the Maquis had no ship of their own any longer and spending the impossibly long journey in the brig or as cargo was unthinkable. With Tabor quiet at her side, Jor had listened patiently as Chakotay explained in detail – as much detail as he could at that point – what was likely to happen now. _Voyager_ needed skilled people. The Maquis had a lot to offer. They were important, and, thus, would be valued by Janeway and her Starfleet crew.

It made sense. Perfect sense. But that rationale didn’t make the overall situation any less unbelievable. It was the third ‘new start’ Jor had been forced to make in less than two years. Around twenty-four months ago, she’d stepped off the transport ship that had taken her away from her homeworld at its first port of call. Salva IV was another planet located along the Federation-Cardassian border with a primarily human population. In hindsight, Jor might have predicted that the Salva system too would eventually become a Cardassian target. She might have stayed on that transport ship until it had travelled deep into secure Federation space. But, at the time, she’d just been glad to put a few light years between herself and her past. And if she’d not decided to take a chance on Salva IV for that new start, she would never have met Tabor.  

When the Occupation of Bajor had ended, Tabor had passed up on the chance to return to his home planet. Instead, he’d left the overcrowded squalor of the Bajoran refugee camps on Valo II for the open spaces and opportunities of Salva IV, arriving there a few weeks before Jor had. By the time – six months later – the colonists on Salva IV and the other inhabited planets of that system had been given fifty-two hours to leave by Cardassian forces, Jor and Tabor had become good friends. Outraged at the disruption to their lives once again, they’d joined the Maquis together. The Maquis had become their new home. And then that displacement wave had hit the _Val Jean_ , throwing the ship, with Jor and Tabor on it, into yet another new and drastic situation.

The chime of her door mechanism caused Jor to open her eyes with a start, wondering if she’d dropped off to sleep and was late to report for duty. But as she rose and queried the computer for the time, its answer reassured her that only a few minutes had passed since she’d kicked off her boots. Striding over to the door, slapping the release panel, she greeted her visitor.

Tabor. In Starfleet uniform, minus facial stubble, and with his earring nowhere to be seen. No doubt there was some Starfleet regulation prohibiting jewellery, though the Bajoran symbol of faith was hardly a fashion statement. It had been a long time since she’d seen Tabor in anything other than the drab leather, wool and cotton of the Maquis, and he was rarely as clean shaven as he was now. He’d only taken the earring off once in the time that she’d known him, when a comrade – the mutual friend from the Salva IV colony who’d got them into the Maquis – had been blown up in a botched demolition. For two weeks after the incident, Tabor had gone bare-eared. He hadn’t discussed his reasoning, and he’d started wearing the earring again without commenting on his change of heart. She’d never pressed him on it.

Whatever he was wearing, or not wearing, he was a welcome sight. Smiling, she stood aside for him to enter. “Finished your tour?” she asked, somewhat needlessly.

Tabor nodded, returning her smile, the door hissing shut as they moved inside. “Crewman Celes was very … informative. I take it Lieutenant Rollins was more concise?”

“I think he rushed through just so as he could get away from us. I’ve been back here for twenty minutes.”

“I think Celes – she’s their only Bajoran … until now – I think she was nervous too. She kept eyeing up Gerron though. Even tried flirting with him, I think.”

“Him and not you?” Jor thought aloud, a spark of something she didn’t wish to examine at present flashing in the back of her mind.

Tabor’s eyes narrowed for a split second. “Just him. She’s too … what’s the word … loquacious? For me, anyway. I was getting tired trying to pick out the relevant bits in what she was saying to us.”

Jor laughed lightly, that unpleasant spark snuffed right out. “You know you can speak Bajoran to me now, don’t you? The Starfleet UT will translate for you.”

He shrugged. “I’ve got into the habit of speaking English. It’ll be hard to break.”

In the Maquis, universal translators had been a luxury, not a standard piece of kit issued to all. Having learned English from human aid workers in the refugee camps of Valo II, Tabor had always used that language to communicate with Jor.

They wandered over to the impossibly comfortable sofa. Jor wondered briefly what the bed was like, but she wasn’t going to get a chance to try it out for many hours yet. If it was as plush as the sofa, she’d never want to get out of it. Tabor took his boots off as he sat down beside her, rubbing a hand over one heel. All this technological innovation, yet Starfleet couldn’t make comfortable footwear. Perhaps, like the rules and regulations, the boots would wear in.

“You really do look different,” Jor said, looking Tabor up and down once more.

His mouth twitched into a half-smile, his gaze taking in her appearance for perhaps a little longer than necessary. “You too.”

She cleared her throat. “The sonic showers are something, aren’t they? I don’t know when I last felt this clean.”

“The one in my quarters was a little aggressive, actually. But I soon got into the control port and tweaked the settings.”

“Is that allowed?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “I’ll bet there’s some regulation about unauthorised maintenance. Probably a dozen forms to fill in before you can turn up the heating.”

Tabor rolled his eyes. “Yeah. B’Elanna will be flipping out big time about the rules and regs. She’s already down in engineering helping their deputy chief fix a problem with the dilithium chamber hatch. Word is she’s asked if Hogan can go and help too.”

“Why Hogan?” she asked, piqued on Tabor’s behalf. “You’re a better engineer than he is.”

“But he knows more about Starfleet systems than I do. He grew up on Starbase 211, remember? His parents were warp engineers. They won’t let us loose to work until they’re satisfied we won’t make any of the problems worse. It’s understandable.”

They fell silent for a moment, Tabor – unconsciously, it seemed – running his fingers around the edge of his right ear lobe, and growing deep in thought. And she knew exactly what he was thinking.

“Atara and Roberto know their way around a Starfleet engine room,” he said eventually.

Both Atara and Roberto were ex-Starfleet officers who’d joined the Maquis around the same time as Chakotay had. The day before the _Val Jean_ had been chased into the Badlands by Gul Evek, Atara, Roberto and four other members of Chakotay’s Maquis cell had been sent on a mission to resupply a weapons cache near Bajor. The six were due to rendezvous with the _Val Jean_ after two weeks. That was three days ago now. Jor had been trying not to think about that missed rendezvous. About what the absence of the _Val Jean_ at the rendezvous site would mean for those six left behind in the Alpha Quadrant.

“They’ll think we’re dead, won’t they?” she said softly.

Tabor swallowed hard before giving his non-answer. “They’ll look for us. But they won’t be able to make much of an extensive search in the Badlands.”

“They might think we were destroyed by a Cardassian warship, but they won’t find any debris. So the obvious conclusion will be that we were hit by a plasma storm. A plasma storm might not leave any debris.”

With a slow nod, Tabor met her gaze. “Yes,” he conceded. “I expect they will think that the _Val Jean_ was destroyed. And that we’re all dead.”

Jor let out a long breath, looking away from her friend as she blinked back tears that threatened to form. It wasn’t that she was embarrassed to cry in front of him. But she didn’t want to report to engineering with a snotty nose and red eyes. Crying would have to wait until later.

“He’ll be all right, you know,” said Tabor. “He’s not that fresh-faced kid anymore.”

He spoke of Nelson, of course. The young Setlik III survivor who had dropped out of high school to join the Maquis and avenge the murder of his family. Jor had felt duty bound to help the young man settle in to his new life as a resistance fighter. Looking after Nelson had helped take her mind off her own problems. Tabor had taken Nelson under his wing too, and the three of them had become inseparable.

Nelson shouldn’t have been sent on that resupply mission. But Jonas had gone down with Mendakan pox, and Nelson had volunteered to take his place so that the sick man could recuperate in the relative comfort of the _Val Jean_ ’s tiny infirmary. Tabor was right; Nelson had grown up a lot in the past year. But the kid was still going to be hit hard at the disappearance of most of his new family – not just Jor and Tabor, but the others he’d formed a bond with too, like B’Elanna, Kurt Bendera, and Ken Dalby.

“I told him we’d see him again soon.” Jor looked back to Tabor, unsure of quite what she wanted him to tell her. The bond between Tabor and Nelson had been strained of late.  

“Sahreen will look out for him,” Tabor said, blinking.

That was some reassurance, at least. Nelson wasn’t on his own.

They fell into silence again for a long moment.

“Is it just me…?” Jor began, “… but I feel guilty seeing all this.” She gestured to the sofa on which they sat, to the bed, table and chairs. “The facilities on this ship – the computer system, the medical tech … there are even two holodecks. Can you imagine where we could go?”

Tabor’s face brightened at that. “Earth. Or Bajor. We could visit Jalanda city. Or take a trip down the Holana River.”

“Do you think they’ll let us use the holodecks?”

“One crew, Chakotay said, remember? How can they not?”

Bringing her knees up onto the seat of the sofa, Jor turned to look out of the long window behind. There was nothing to see except the star streaks of warp travel, but the cramped bunk rooms on the _Val Jean_ hadn’t even had a window. “One crew, under a Starfleet captain,” Jor stated, knowing that the full reality of that would take some time to sink in.

Tabor shifted to mirror her position, his knees meeting hers. “A Starfleet crew.”

Snorting loudly, Jor kept her eyes fixed on the star streaks, deciding that one could easily become hypnotized by them. “If someone had told me a couple of days ago that I’d be putting on this uniform, I’d have told them that I’d die first. And I don’t want to be stuck out here, out of the fight.”

“But?”

She turned to face Tabor now. “This Captain Janeway, she made a tough call in the interests of protecting a vulnerable people against an aggressor.”

“Unlike those Starfleet officers who helped negotiate the Treaty and set up the DMZ.”

“I want to disagree with what she did, and with what Chakotay did in helping her strand us all out here.”

“But you can’t.”

Shaking her head slowly, she looked him directly in the eye, asking, “Can you?”

His hand sought the missing earring again. “It would be … hypocritical, wouldn’t it? To be a Maquis, and yet to disagree with Janeway protecting the Ocampa from the Kazon. It’s at great cost to us, but we’re alive and well, and we do still have a state-of-the-art starship to carry us home.”

“Across seventy thousand light years,” she reminded him. With the prospect of a stay in a Federation ‘rehabilitation centre’ at the end of it. If they did, in fact, make it back.

Tabor glanced to the stars, then turned his eyes back to her again. “So, let’s make the best of it.”

 

* * *

 

_Parallax_

She had her head stuck in the innards of a monitoring station on engineering’s upper walkway when she heard his approaching footsteps. She knew instinctively that it was him, though he trod a little heavier in his Starfleet boots. A portent of the position he was about find himself in, perhaps?

The footsteps stopped behind her. “How many pips?” she asked, making sure to mark up the relevant control circuits inside the workstation before she rose to greet him face to face. She’d been half an hour already isolating the faulty circuit. To lose her place now would be extremely irritating, even if she were interrupting her work for a good cause.

“Just the one,” Tabor told her. “And it’s still a line on the rank bar, just a gold one instead of a black one.”

“Hmm. So, B’Elanna and Ayala were the only two to make lieutenant?”

“It seems that way.”

Finally assured that she’d be able to pick up where she’d left off, Jor extracted herself from the workstation, straightened and turned. Her eyes naturally were drawn immediately to Tabor’s collar. “Do I have to salute you or something?” she quipped.

“Only when we’re on duty,” he returned dryly.

She crossed her arms deliberately across her chest, making him laugh.

“Are you mad that you didn’t get upgraded too?” he asked, reaching up to finger the provisional rank bar.

“No way. I’ve got enough to do without being responsible for supervising other people’s work as well.”

At that, Tabor’s face fell a little.

“Hey, you’ll be fine,” Jor reassured him. “Chakotay wouldn’t have put your name forward if he didn’t think you were up to the task.”

Tabor nodded. “It’s not that so much.” Moving to lean on the railings, he glanced over the side before turning his attention back to a now puzzled Jor. “I’m in charge of shuttle maintenance on beta shift.”

“Isn’t shuttle maintenance what you were hoping to be assigned to?” Jor asked, feeling like she was missing something and about to look stupid when he explained the catch.

“It’s not that. It’s Beta shift. You’re on Alpha shift.”

“Oh.” Of course. That was a bit of a downer. Beta shift’s leisure time – the eight hour period after their duty shift ended – coincided with Alpha shift’s on-duty hours. Alpha shift’s leisure time coincided with Beta shift’s sleep period (the eight hour period before that duty shift began). Jor was still trying to get her head around how _Voyager_ ’s shift pattern operated, but what Tabor’s news boiled down to was that they weren’t going to see each other all that much, especially as it was more than likely that, in reality, those off-duty periods would be much shorter than they were scheduled to be. _Voyager_ required a lot of maintenance just to keep things ticking over, regardless of any combat or other damage that might befall the ship. With so many Starfleet-trained engineers and technicians lost in the crossing to the Delta Quadrant, these next few weeks would be particularly busy. There was a lot to learn for the Maquis crew. Settling in to their new roles would be easier if they could share some downtime with those they were closest to among their comrades.

Of course, duty rosters were bound to change as time went on: as department heads discovered who worked well together (and who didn’t), and which of their draftees had which particular aptitudes. Furthermore, new friendships would be forged – even between old enemies – but Jor’s heart couldn’t help but sink as she processed the information.  

“So, you’ll have to stay up late and wait for me to get off duty if you want someone to listen to you complain about say … Chell,” she said to make light of it.

“I’ll make a point of it,” he assured her.

Jor knew she shouldn’t be standing around chatting; the burnt-out circuits weren’t going to fix themselves, and even though it didn’t appear to be a critical piece of equipment – Lieutenant Nicoletti had openly delegated this task to Jor because it was time-consuming, yet simple – Jor would strive to finish the task ahead of ‘Starfleet’s’ estimate merely to prove a point. But if she and Tabor were going to be spending so much time apart, then Starfleet could give them a couple of minutes.

“Hey, I had my first run in with the notorious EMH before I got called up to Janeway’s office,” Tabor said, with a roll of his eyes and a contemptuous snort.

“Did you hurt yourself?” she asked, her eyes scanning him for any signs of damage. Which was silly in retrospect, given that the whole point of an EMH was to treat any injury.

“No. No, I’m fine,” he quickly assured her. “But I got called up to sickbay for a routine physical. The hologram wanted a blood sample from me to go on my file. ”

“Is it really as bad as everyone says?” she asked carefully, knowing that, with Tabor, any discussion of doctors and medical facilities required tactful handling.

“It’s a highly advanced piece of medical kit. It doesn’t have any bedside manners, but I’d say we’re lucky to have it on board given the lack of any other physician.”

“It must be able to provide better care than we’ve been used to before now.”

“Yes. As long as you don’t want any sympathy from it.”

Access to advanced medicine in the Maquis had been limited not only from the point of view of supplies, but because the number of medically-trained personnel in the organisation was so low. Most people could be trained to administer basic first aid, but more serious injuries and illnesses required diagnostic equipment and therapeutic devices that the average Maquis did not know how to use, even if that equipment could be obtained. There’d been plenty of sympathetic field medics in the Maquis, but more than sympathy was needed to save the lives of the sick and injured, let alone to help them back to a level of fitness such that they could get back in the fight. Jor would happily take technology over compassion anytime when it came to healthcare.

“I’ve been thinking about going to see it … him,” she said. Given that the hologram was modelled on a human male, she supposed that it – he – could be addressed as such. It might be easier for everyone if a name was assigned to him.

“You’re still getting headaches?” Tabor asked, pointing to his own head with a frown.

“Sometimes,” she admitted.

“Oh.” His voice took on an accusatory tone. “You’ve never mentioned them lately.”

“Many people get headaches from time to time. I don’t know that I wouldn’t have them even if I hadn’t suffered a head injury in the past.”

She should have known that that excuse wouldn’t satisfy him.

“Did you get many headaches before?” he enquired sceptically.

“No,” she conceded with a sigh.

Though the original, complex head injury she’d suffered two years ago back on Orcadia had been treated by qualified doctors, something, it seemed, had healed insufficiently, perhaps because those doctors had lacked the sophisticated technology that Federation hospitals were equipped with. The EMH might be another silver lining in the grey cloud that was _Voyager_.

“I’m sure the EMH will be able to help you. You should go to sickbay now. Don’t wait until you’re summoned.” Trying to lighten the mood, Tabor tugged at his collar, “Maybe I could order you to go. Do you think?”

She scowled at him, though knowing that he had her best interests at heart, she couldn’t feel any real annoyance. “I will. It’s just…”

Tabor nodded in understanding, saying softly, “You’ll have to describe to him how the original injury occurred.”

“Exactly.” And, as annoying as the headaches were, it was tempting just to continue to put up with them rather than recount her own personal experience during the Cardassian attack on her homeworld. The pain was never so bad that she couldn’t carry out her daily activities. But there was another thought at the back of her mind: that investigations would find no physical damage or biochemical imbalance that explained the headaches – that the Doctor would conclude that the headaches were psychological in origin. She’d made a few searches through the medical database. If the pain was deemed to be psychosomatic then it would be difficult to treat and she might just have to put up with it anyway.

“You know that if you wanted me to come with you to sickbay – if it would help – then I would do.”

The depth of concern that came through in his delivery of those words chased the scowl right off her face. “I know you would,” she told him with a grateful smile. “Thanks.”

Tabor peered over the railings again and Jor followed his example. Down on the lower level, Vorik, the young Vulcan, was instructing Kurt and Seska in some aspect of the warp injectors. Behind Vorik’s back, Seska made an exaggerated yawning gesture to Jonas, who was monitoring (supposed to be monitoring) one of the displays. Jonas, like Henley, was another that Jor had never warmed too. And knowing that Jonas was here instead of Nelson, however wrongly that reason, made Jor dislike Jonas all the more.

Seska suddenly snapped her attention back to Vorik’s demonstration. A moment later, Nicoletti walked past the core. When the Starfleet lieutenant had continued out of the way, Seska resumed her childish behaviour. Jonas made an adolescent gesture back, grinning like a Marvan wildcat.

Nudging Jor’s elbow with his own, Tabor leaned in close and whispered, “Let’s make sure we stay clear of any trouble. I’m not saying we shouldn’t back up our comrades if needs be, but I don’t want my privileges revoked over some … petty fun-poking.”

Jor hummed her agreement. “I’m guessing if trouble starts it’ll centre around Paris,” she muttered. “When I was in the mess hall earlier, Ayala had to bundle Yosa out of there. Yosa would have skewered the bastard on his dinner fork. Paris, that is, not Ayala. Obviously.” Yosa was not taking the situation well at all. He refused to speak to Chakotay, blaming the Maquis leader even more than Janeway for the fact that he was stuck in the Delta Quadrant.

Sighing, Tabor turned and moved back from the railings, out of the sight of those below. Jor followed, edging back towards the task she had on hold. “I should get on,” she said. “Show these Starfleet types what hard work really looks like.”

Tabor nodded, bidding her farewell and backing away towards the lift that would take him down to the lower level. “Things could certainly get very interesting,” he called as he turned on his heel.

Jor stuck her head back into the innards of the workstation. She couldn’t agree more.


	2. Chapter 2

_Eye of the Needle_

Life aboard _Voyager_ had played out more smoothly and with less drama than Tabor could have predicted three months earlier when he’d first set foot on the ship. There’d been minor spats – usually only verbal in nature – between Maquis and Starfleet crewmembers. But there’d also been a few incidents where Starfleet crewmen had quarrelled quite publicly with each other. Unlike the Maquis, most of the Starfleet crew weren’t used to being out of contact with their families for so long. Neither were they used to eating ration packs (or questionable cooking) and having to follow power conservation measures. Tensions rose and were released upon each other, the final straw often something innocuous like an accidental nudge in the lunch queue. Tabor watched these incidents closely, but made sure to keep well out of the way.

After Seska was made ensign, Jor had got stuck sharing quarters with Henley. Tabor hadn’t seen much of his friend with their duty shifts unaligned as they were, but, when he did share a meal with her, there was always a gripe about Henley’s annoying habits. Responsibility might have its downsides, but Tabor had yet to experience any significant drawbacks to it himself, and not having to share quarters with another crewmember was the definite highlight of the gold bar on his collar.

Shuttle maintenance was routine but demanding. He was learning a lot of new engineering techniques and getting to use equipment he’d never had access to in the Maquis or before. And, getting to know the small team that he worked with on a day-to-day basis was actually enjoyable. Chell was a pain in the ass (as always), but the Starfleet crewmen – Dell, Dorado and Henard – were a likeable bunch. Dorado had even started calling Tabor ‘sir’, and not in the slightly facetious manner that Jor or Henley did, but with a tone of genuine respect for a superior officer.

“If it’s all right by you, we’ll go for lunch, sir,” Dorado called into the cabin of the _Tereshkova_.

Tabor kept forgetting that, as their supervising officer, it was supposed to be up to him to determine when it was convenient for the team to take a break. Engrossed in the work as he so often was, sometimes the hours would get away from him, and, understandably, one or other of his team members would drop a subtle hint regarding the time. Or Chell’s stomach would rumble so loudly that no other hint was necessary.

“Have you finished patching that scrape above the port nacelle?” Tabor asked, rising from his seat behind the helm where he was running a diagnostic on the thruster controls. Weaving his way to the back of the craft through stacks of tools, Tabor came face to face with Dorado.

“It’s all done, good as new. We’re ready to work on the dent in the hatch,” Dorado reported.

Over the crewman’s head, Tabor could see that Chell had already downed tools and was fidgeting with the medallion around his neck. Dell and Henard continued to work, the former inputting data into a PADD and the latter cleaning a hyperspanner with a micro-resonator.

Tabor gave Dorado a nod. “Sounds like a good time to break.”

Chell would be good for nothing until he filled his giant stomach. And the others knew as well, if not better than Tabor, how best to organise the workload in front of them. Dismissing the four crewmen to their break, Tabor clambered back to the helm with a view to finishing his own task before he went to get something to eat himself. He got a few minutes more work done before he was interrupted. Not that he minded in this case. Not at all.

“I thought I’d find you in the mess hall at this time of day.”

Surprised, he peered around over his shoulder. “And I thought you’d still be in bed.”

Jor made her way forwards through the clutter. “Henley came in late and woke me. Now she’s fallen asleep but I can’t get back. It wouldn’t be so bad except she did the same thing last night.”

“Ah.”

“Am I disturbing you?”

“No.” Clearing a stack of PADDs from the co-pilot’s seat, he waved her over. “Sit down. Please.”

Heaving a long sigh, she slumped into the adjacent seat, crossing her arms over her chest, and closing her eyes. “I think I’ve got it into my head now that she’s going to make noise,” Jor said, tipping her head back with her eyes still shut. “So, whenever I’m just starting to drift off, I can’t get fully asleep. I never had this problem on the _Val Jean_. But I suppose I got used to having my own space.”

She opened her eyes then, staring directly into his for a moment before turning her gaze onto the console in front of him. “Just think what we’d have done a few months back to get our hands on one of these shuttles.”

“Yeah. And think what we could have done with it if we had stolen one. The speed, manoeuvrability… ”

“They’re even pretty comfortable seats.” Closing her eyes again, she broke into a smile. “Can I sleep here?”

Tabor laughed. “In about twenty minutes my team will return, and there’ll be all sorts of noise coming in here: banging, drilling, Chell…”

“I see your point.”

“But, if you like, you can sleep in my quarters.”

Her eyes snapped open. “Oh, I wouldn’t want to impose on you.”

“No. I mean it. There are, what,” he checked the time on the console, “four hours until your shift begins. I’ll be here working, so you won’t be disturbed. It seems illogical for my room to be there empty when you can’t to get to sleep in yours.”

She thought for a moment. “You really wouldn’t mind?”

“Of course not. It’s all yours. There are spare blankets and pillows in the closet.” As much as he’d enjoy her company for a while longer, he raised a hand to wave her away. “Go on. The sooner you get there, the more sleep you can get. While you’re on the way, I’ll call up the computer and get it to allow you in the door.”

She beamed a smile at him again, before rising and making her exit.

“But if you use all my water rations in the shower, there’ll be trouble,” he joked, knowing that she’d never do such a thing and that, even if she did, he would forgive her.

###

In the mess hall, some of the more gregarious Starfleet types would ask Tabor to join them at their table, or would ask if he minded them sitting with him if they saw he was absent the company of his fellow Maquis. Conversation wasn’t always easy to make, and Tabor preferred to stick to non-emotive subjects such as science and engineering issues if he could. Neelix was usually on hand to break into any awkward silences with his lively tales of Delta Quadrant species or with an explanation of his latest culinary experiment. Kes was another who could spot an uncomfortable situation and ease it with her presence.

It was Tom Paris who needed ‘rescuing’ more than any of the Maquis. He might have made a friend in Ensign Kim – and the Delaney twins in stellar cartography seemed enamoured by him – but an air of distrust and resentment still followed Paris around. None of the Maquis wanted to be seen sitting with him. Seska had even joined Tuvok for one meal when the only other free seats were on Paris’s table. As much as he didn’t want to, Tabor actually felt a little sorry for Paris. The treatment the pilot was receiving was not without due cause, but maybe the guy genuinely wanted to change his ways.  

When he reached the mess hall on this particular occasion after waiting in the shuttle bay until his four crewmen returned, Tabor found it empty. That wasn’t unusual for the time of day. Neelix usually arranged his schedule so that he slept when those on Alpha shift did. There was a plate of sandwiches covered by a transparent lid left out on the counter and a pot of cold stew sat on a worktop in the galley. Taking a chance, Tabor filled a plate with the stew, picked up a knife and fork, and headed back out into the dining area.

A tall, blond-haired figure had taken up a seat with his back to the galley. Frowning – he’d not heard anyone enter the mess hall – Tabor took another step forwards, then paused as he recognised the red-shirted officer.

Resuming his movement – hastily debating whether it would be more awkward to sit away from Paris or to ask to join him – Tabor approached Paris’s table. The pilot had a plate of toast in front of him, the bread smothered in a nasty-looking brown substance.

“Lieutenant,” Tabor offered in greeting.

“Ensign,” Paris answered back, looking up briefly before returning his attention to his replicated meal and a PADD he had beside the plate on the table.

Maybe he was just in a gambling mood, because something – curiosity? – made Tabor take a risk that might have greater consequences that consuming Neelix’s stew, particularly should any of the Maquis show up. And etiquette was probably not on Tabor’s side, Paris being his senior. But, nevertheless, after clearing his throat, Tabor asked him, “Would you care for some company?”

Paris’s expression was as veiled as ever when he glanced up. At least to start with. His eyes then narrowed as if he were wondering whether he’d misheard. Or if Tabor were joking around. But then, the impassive façade reforming, Paris gestured to the empty seat across from him. “Please.”

Tabor set his plate down on the table, placed his knife and fork alongside, and sat down. “I didn’t hear you come in,” he said.

Paris didn’t respond except to blink once and then thumb off the PADD. “You’re not going to heat that up first?” he asked, nodding at Tabor’s meal.

“I don’t have much time. I figured I could eat it quicker cold.”

Almost, but not quite imperceptibly, a corner of Paris’s mouth twitched. “Well, I’ll be interested to see what you make of it.”

“How bad can it be?” Tabor asked suspiciously, loading a cube of some beige vegetable onto his fork and lifting it to his mouth. There was no strong smell. And it tasted acceptable. “It’s a little spicy,” he said, wondering what was going on behind those blue eyes of the man opposite. A flicker of amusement passed across the man’s face, Tabor was sure of it. “But it’s better than what we had to eat in the Maquis much of the time.”

“Wait till you try those green things,” Paris replied with a smirk. “Some kind of Talaxian peppers.”

Looking more closely now at the solid pieces mixed into the thick brown gravy, Tabor noted the relative abundance of green in relation to the other more muted colours. Tentatively, he speared one of the pieces in question and ate it, feeling Paris’s eyes fixed upon him.

Within a heartbeat, Tabor’s tongue began to burn, then the roof of his mouth, followed by his throat. He barely noticed Paris spring from his seat and rush to the replicator, only processing that the other man had left the table and returned when a glass of milk was plunked down on the table top.

“I’d fish the peppers out if I were you,” Paris said, with a chuckle, pushing the glass closer to Tabor, who took the hint, dropping his utensils, picking up the glass and drinking desperately.

“Thanks,” Tabor rasped, his eyes now streaming. He downed the rest of the milk, welcoming the coolness that it brought to his insides, wondering how anyone could find such a noxious food appealing. Well, aside from the Bolians, perhaps.

“You should have seen Vorik’s reaction to the stuff,” Paris said wistfully. “He made a good effort to hide it, but I swear he was ready to get very emotional with Neelix, if you know what I mean. And Crewman Darwin – he ended up in sickbay. Got some of it on his fingers without realising and then rubbed his eyes.”

Tabor picked up his fork again, beginning to sift through the stew to gather the green blobs in one place so that he could safely eat the rest of it. “You could have warned me.”

“I thought I did.”

And Paris had, albeit indirectly. Tabor should have seen the warning signs; there was an awful lot of the stew leftover in the galley.

“I’ll be sure to repay your rations,” Tabor said, tipping his head towards the replicator on the wall.

Paris followed the gesture with a slight frown, before his eyes widened in understanding. “Oh, forget it. A glass of milk comes cheap.”

Tabor shook his head, having no wish to be indebted to the other man. “Thanks. But I’ll see your account is credited.”

Shrugging nonchalantly, Paris uttered no further protest.

“So, what’s that you have there?” Tabor asked, pointing with his knife to Paris’s plate, figuring that food was a sensibly neutral subject to converse about.

Paris almost smiled. “Peanut butter and jelly.”

“Jelly?”

“It’s preserved fruit. Fruit and sugar. Do you want to try some?”

“No. Thank you,” Tabor quickly replied.

“It’s perfectly safe.”

“I’ll take your word for it. No offense.”

“None taken.”

With Tabor’s meal requiring much of his concentration, talk ceased for a few minutes. Paris resumed reading as he crunched through the toast. Tabor had to wonder why the other man was up and about at this hour. Perhaps, like Jor, he couldn’t sleep. Or maybe he was preparing something for his upcoming shift. Tabor’s sense of inquisitiveness didn’t extend so far as to enquire. In fact, now that they’d fallen silent, Tabor began to feel a niggle of concern again about the impression it would give – him sitting in the mess hall with Tom Paris, the traitor, when there were plenty of empty tables to be had.

But, if any of the other Maquis were to walk in, they wouldn’t know that it wasn’t Paris who’d asked to join Tabor rather than the other way around. And, when it came down to it, Tabor could sit with whomever he wished. He hadn’t had much interaction with Paris during the pilot’s short stint in the Maquis. What opinion Tabor had had of Paris during that time had been largely coloured by comments made by others, most notably B’Elanna and Seska.

Could Paris be blamed for agreeing to help Janeway track down the _Val Jean_? Certainly, it seemed that Paris was thinking of his own situation and what was best for him personally – a reduced prison sentence – when he’d decided he would help guide _Voyager_ through the Badlands. And that action, had circumstances been different, would likely have resulted in the _Val Jean_ ’s capture by Starfleet, and the prosecutions of her crew. But prison must have been particularly difficult for the son of a Starfleet admiral. None of them knew how bad it might have been for Paris in there. Tabor had plenty of experience of incarceration. He understood what loss of liberty felt like all too well.

It was unlikely that Janeway had awarded Paris his field commission purely on the man’s actions on Ocampa. She must have seen enough potential in Paris that she could to some extent look past the dishonourable conduct that had forced him out of Starfleet in the first place. It was always Tabor’s preference to appraise someone for himself before making any judgement on that person’s merits or failings. Paris really was a curiosity, and it would be interesting to see just how things turned out in his case.  

“Which shuttle are you working on?”

Tabor glanced up. Paris had finished his toast and was picking stray crumbs from his lap and off the table, dropping them onto his plate.

“The _Tereshkova_ ,” Tabor replied.

“Ah, that’s the only one I’ve yet to take out for a test flight. They all handle a little differently and I like to be familiar with the quirks of each one before I need to use it. What exactly is on the maintenance schedule for her?”

Tabor ran through the list of tasks that were lined up for his own team and the maintenance crews on the other shifts, Paris taking a keen interest in what needed to be done.

“You wouldn’t think there’d be so much work to do with the class-8s given that they were straight out of the shipyard onto _Voyager_ ,” Paris mused.

“Nevertheless, if Lieutenant Torres thinks the work is necessary then it’s necessary,” Tabor said.

“I don’t doubt it,” Paris returned, politely taking his leave at that point.

Neelix wandered in just as Tabor was scraping the inedible green pepper cubes from his plate into the waste disposal bin in the galley. Wasting food was as abhorrent to Tabor as it was to any Bajoran who’d lived through the Occupation, but he really felt he had no choice in this instance. Neelix was in a chatty mood as he began to prepare breakfast for Alpha shift, which encompassed the majority of the crew.

Both the Talaxian and Kes seemed to have recovered well from their ordeal at the hands of the Vidiians. They made an odd couple, but were fast becoming so integral to the functioning of the ship that imagining how things would run without them was difficult. Tabor didn’t want to think too deeply about the intricacies of that relationship. He couldn’t get his head around the fact that Kes was only two years old and Neelix was of an indeterminate, but definitely much greater age. But they were both adults, and it was nobody else’s business what they got up to.

“I really can’t wait around,” Tabor told him, the challenging meal having taken far longer to get through than he’d planned though at least the conversation with Paris had given good use to the time.

“Of course. You have important work to do, Ensign. Don’t let me hold you up,” the Talaxian replied, though he still insisted on asking Tabor whether he would enjoy a Bajoran-themed menu one day soon. Tabor tried to deter him with the excuse that, as there were only four Bajorans on the ship, it would be indulgent to expect the rest of the crew to eat Bajoran food. Neelix wasn’t swayed by that, so Tabor told him to ask Seska about it, next time she came in for a meal.

And then he firmly excused himself again, managing on that second attempt to get away. His team would be expecting him back. He had an example to set.

###

When the news of Harry Kim’s wormhole discovery had spread throughout the ship, the Starfleet engineers had become filled with excitement. Deliriously hopeful in a few cases. Tabor would be glad if the plan worked out and _Voyager_ could use the wormhole to get back to the Alpha Quadrant, he really would. But surely the welcome home that would await him and the other Maquis would involve a Starfleet brig, the pressing of charges for terrorism, remand, a trial, and prison.

Ken Dalby wasn’t worried about going to prison. Neither were Yosa or Ayala. Those three would take a return to the Alpha Quadrant at almost any cost: Dalby because he was finding the Starfleet system beyond intolerable, and Yosa and Ayala, because they had the most to go back to. Seska was another who was desperate to get home. Blinded by her fanaticism for the Maquis cause, she brushed off any talk of ending up in a Federation rehab colony. If it weren’t for the Maquis, _Voyager_ would have been destroyed by the Kazon, she said. That had to buy the Maquis some leniency.

The wave of disappointment that broke when the size of the wormhole was revealed to be prohibitive to a starship passing through it was tempered somewhat by the prospect of sending messages home. At least among the Starfleet types. For many of the Maquis that opportunity was of little use.

Tabor was working an extra voluntary shift in the shuttle bay when the call came through for each member of _Voyager_ ’s crew to compose a short letter for transmission through the wormhole. Ensign Ashmore had offered to run through some shield specs with him, and Tabor was keen to fill the knowledge gaps that the absence of an Academy education resulted in.

Ashmore’s shuttle maintenance team were all Starfleet, and eagerly grabbed the PADDs that Ashmore handed out for them to write on. Tabor didn’t refuse the PADD he was handed, but when he slumped down into the pilot’s seat of the _Sacajawea_ to consider just who he could write to, he came up blank. His closest friends in the Alpha Quadrant were active members of the Maquis. Starfleet wouldn’t deliver a message to any of them – how could they, anyhow, without knowing of the Maquis’s location? And for Tabor to name his friends and include personal details in the message might compromise active Maquis operations. He might be wearing a Starfleet uniform, but he’d never do anything to help Starfleet’s campaign against the Maquis in the Alpha Quadrant.

He still had family on Bajor, but they were distant relatives and it had been years since he’d seen them. All of his immediate family were dead, even the relatives that had got off Bajor during the Occupation. The sister that Tabor had fled Bajor with had died of cholera in the refugee camp on Valo II only a couple of months after they had arrived there. An uncle who’d been working the trade route between Betazed and Caldik had been killed in a transporter accident. So, Tabor stared at the blank screen on the PADD for a while, before flicking the device off.

“You done already, Ensign?”

Tabor looked across the cabin to where Frank Darwin lounged back against a bulkhead, tapping away frantically at the PADD in his hands.

“I’m still thinking of who I might write to,” Tabor told him, not wanting to get into details with this man he didn’t know very well, but adding, “The people I’m closest to are here on _Voyager_. Most of them.”

“The Captain wants the messages ready in the next hour,” called Ashmore from the open aft hatch. “Don’t think too long.”

Tabor sighed quietly. He didn’t bother to further explain himself to his companions. They wouldn’t understand. How could they? Jor would understand. She wouldn’t be writing a message either, most likely. And B’Elanna? Who would she write to?

Darwin, on the other hand, seemed to be writing down a novel on his PADD. He had even turned a little red in the face with the effort, his eyes flickering up and down the screen as the words went down.

“So, who are you writing to?” Tabor asked him with genuine interest.

“My sisters,” Darwin replied without looking up. “I have to apologise to them for getting myself stuck out here. They must be real pissed at me. Absolutely mad.”

Tabor frowned, not understanding the man’s reasoning. “How’s that? It’s hardly your fault, is it?”

Darwin’s lips pressed into a hard line, his jaw tensing. “I was offered a place in officer training at the Academy,” he explained. “My sisters told me I should go for it, but I turned it down to serve on _Voyager_. A brand new Intrepid-class ship – I couldn’t pass up the chance. I thought I could always take up a place at the Academy after my tour of duty was over. Then I end up out here.”

“Oh. That’s … unlucky,” Tabor said, for want of anything better to offer.

“Yeah. That’ll teach me to look for excitement over the advice of my elders.”

“You’re the youngest of your family?”

“That’s right. Three girls, then a ten year gap to me. I was still in high school when our parents died, so my sisters brought me up from then. I owe them a lot for that…” Darwin took in a deep breath, releasing it slowly as he seemed to lose a hold on his composure for a moment. Tabor turned away, debating whether to leave and give the man some space, but then Darwin began to speak again, his voice clear and even. “Still, it could be worse. At least I don’t have a wife and kids, like Carey, or Martin. They must be real glad to have this chance to write home.”

Ayala too had a wife and two young sons back home – on Galador II where they’d been forced to relocate to when their home colony was ceded to the Cardassians. Ayala had contacted them regularly during his tenure in the Maquis and was concerned that they would think him dead now that he was unable to get in touch.

A couple of minutes later, Tabor left Darwin – still writing – and exited the shuttle to stretch his legs on the shuttle bay floor. Leaning against the outer hull, Farley and Ashmore had their heads together, discussing what may or may not be prudent to include in their letters. They paid Tabor no attention as he wandered over to the adjacent _Cochrane_ , made a circuit around it, and looped back to the _Sacajawea_ via the _Drake_ and the _Tereshkova_.

By the time Tabor had returned to his starting point, Darwin was outside the shuttle handing Ashmore his message. The ensign then left to deliver the messages to Tuvok who would compile them onto an isolinear chip to give to the Romulan captain.

Tabor had finished work for the day before the double blow was revealed: that the Romulan had come from twenty years prior to _Voyager_ ’s time in 2373, and, furthermore, had died in 2367. That fact had been kept back from most of the crew for some time after the senior officers had become aware of it.

There was the faint hope that the messages would still get to Starfleet by some means, but the mood in the shuttle bay when Tabor reported for his next shift was subdued. It might have been better had the wormhole never been discovered. It was cruel for hopes to be raised and then dashed.

The amount of productive work that was done that following day was minimal. For the first time, Tabor had to pull rank on his Starfleet subordinates. Both Dell and Henard slunk around taking out their frustrations on shuttle parts and each other. When Dell decided brute force was the best way to get a stubborn isolinear chip to slot into its socket and it broke in his hand, Tabor had to raise his voice to the man. For a brief but nerve-wracking moment, Tabor thought Dell was going to tell him where to go, but Dell took a breath and then apologised. After that, Henard got himself together as well, and from that shift on, Tabor was ‘sir’ to his team members all the time.

When Tabor mentioned this to Hogan, it transpired that the other Maquis ensign was beginning to secure the same degree of sincere respect from the Starfleet crewmen that he outranked. In the grand scheme of things, the correct address of a superior officer was only a small detail. It was a very ‘Starfleet’ thing to be concerned with. But Tabor was beginning to realise that he liked working in a hierarchy. The Maquis had been downright anarchic at times, with too many people having too much say in decisions that needed to be taken quickly and authoritatively. Much time and many resources had been wasted because of a lack of organisation. If they ever got back to the Alpha Quadrant, were allowed to go free, and still had a cause to fight for, it wouldn’t hurt to suggest a few changes in the way things were done.

 


	3. Chapter 3

_State of Flux_

“Have you heard?”

Jor was halfway through a plate of Neelix’s latest contribution to culinary science – some casserole containing a large proportion of the ugly root that the food-gathering team had found during _Voyager_ ’s most recent stop-off – when Tabor’s voice cut across Henley’s bitching about said meal. From Tabor’s tone, Jor knew something bad must have happened. Something very bad. Her stomach clenched, a sensation all the more unpleasant for the food she’d just ingested and was struggling to digest.

Looking up, she craned her neck to seek out her friend. Tabor pushed impatiently past a huddle of science officers that were standing between Jor’s table and the mess hall entrance. One of them – a Delaney sister – was about to remark on his lack of manners, then, seeing his expression, held her tongue. Tabor’s face was ashen. In fact, he looked close to tears, as distraught as Jor had ever seen him.

“Did you hear?” he repeated, seemingly oblivious to the heads that turned to watch him, his focus locked onto Jor. The volume of background noise decreased sharply. Jor stood instinctively. By the time Tabor had got to her, she had a hand ready to reach out and steady him. She could have done with someone there to steady her too.

“What news?” Jor asked, feeling the blood drain from her own face as Tabor paled further. Her hand tightened on his arm.

“Seska. She’s … she’s a Cardassian.”

“No fucking way,” Henley exclaimed, shoving her chair back and springing to her feet. A collective gasp filled the air seeming to suck all further noise out of the room.

For one surreal moment, Jor decided that this was just a horrible dream. Any second, she would wake up, her heart hammering, but able to shake her head and even laugh about it in the morning. But it wasn’t a dream, and Tabor certainly wasn’t joking. Could he be mistaken? The victim of a Starfleet prank? Where had he heard this news, and from whom?

“She’s beamed off the ship,” Tabor said shakily, ending the silence. “Gone to join the Kazon.”

No. Even the most anti-Maquis of the Starfleet crew wouldn’t be as callous as to taunt a Bajoran with such a claim. It had to be true. But how could it be?

“Ayala told me,” Tabor added, before Jor could ask him for his source. “He was in sickbay when she transported away. She’d been in communication with them, given them replicator technology, and then tried to pin the blame on Carey when she was found out.”

Dalby appeared on Tabor’s shoulder. Jor felt others crowd in behind her. Every person who had been seated a moment earlier now rose, their plates of leola root casserole abandoned. Neelix poked his head out from the galley so as not to miss out on the proceedings.

A barrage of questions then ensued. Tabor was in no fit state to answer any of them. He’d said all he could, so when Bendera arrived on the scene with more detailed information, Jor was grateful that the attention shifted to him and away from Tabor. Eager as she was to find out more from Bendera, who’d got his version of events via B’Elanna, Jor’s focus stayed with Tabor. He was her only concern right now. Making a hasty but sensible decision, she took Tabor by the hand, pulling him away from the fringes of the mob that was now centring on Bendera. Bendera stepped up onto a chair to be better seen and heard by his audience.

“Come on. Let’s get out of here,” Jor said to Tabor, her words barely audible over the roar of the questions being flung at Bendera. Tabor didn’t resist as Jor pushed past the incoming Golwat and Nicoletti to get him out into the corridor.

“I can’t believe she had me fooled,” Tabor mumbled, as they reached the turbolift – him almost staggering by her side, her own legs not exactly feeling steady.

Jor held back all the questions she was desperate to have answered. The facts would come out in due course. “She had everyone fooled,” Jor said. “Not just you. I can’t believe it either.”

“But I’m Bajoran,” he snapped, shaking his head in dismay, and yanking his hand free of hers to clutch at his temples.

Jor winced, but didn’t take his temper personally as she gently guided him into the waiting turbolift with a hand on the small of his back.

In the turbolift her patience failed her, and she tried to coax more information from him. What he told her was jumbled and interspersed with self-condemnation. He really was taking Seska’s deception very personally. Jor didn’t want to imagine how Chakotay must be feeling right now. And B’Elanna had been friendly with Seska. The half-Klingon was probably punching holes in the bulkheads.

At deck four, Jor steered Tabor out of the turbolift towards her quarters. His own quarters were way down on deck nine, and in the state he was in, the sooner she got him out of public view the better. He might be too agitated to care right now, but, when he’d calmed down, he’d hate the thought of his crewmates having seen him so distressed. Henley, Jor’s roommate since Seska had got herself made ensign, had still been in the mess hall when Jor and Tabor had left there. With any luck, Henley would stay up on deck two in the thick of things for a while. Good old Kurt Bendera could always be relied upon to get his comrades out of a tight spot.

Unfortunately, once over the threshold of her quarters, Jor had no real plan for dealing with Tabor’s agitation. He wouldn’t sit down. He threw her hand off his arm and paced over to the window, fists clenched and shaking his head intermittently. Jor headed to the replicator, browsed the files for something calming to drink, and found what she thought would do the trick. She picked up the two steaming mugs that materialised, carried them over to the window, and offered one of them to Tabor.

At her proximity, he made a visible effort to calm himself, unclenching one trembling hand to take the mug she held out. He raised it to his mouth, took a sip, then peered into the liquid with disgust. “Deka tea?”

“I thought you liked Deka tea,” Jor said, beginning to feel more than a little stumped.

“Seska liked Deka tea,” Tabor spat. “She said it was one of the few things from her childhood in the work camps that she could remember with happiness.”

“I’ll get you something else,” Jor said quickly, reaching to grab the mug back from him as she chided herself for the oversight.

But he pulled the mug to his chest, his hard gaze softening. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I’ll drink it. Thanks.”

In truth, Jor had quite gone off the idea of drinking Deka tea herself now that he’d reminded her of that little fact. She told him so, insisting on replacing the drinks with something else. He gave up the mug, and she recycled it with hers, fetching instead two cups of regular Terran breakfast tea, loaded with sugar. Those cost her the last of her rations, or she might have ordered something stronger to go with it.

Tabor wouldn’t budge from the window, though he did seem to have relaxed slightly. After a long moment he began to drink. Some of the colour started to return to his face. Jor gathered herself, considering what she might say next that wouldn’t aggravate the situation.

“I just can’t believe I couldn’t tell what she was,” Tabor said, raising his free hand to stop Jor interrupting him before he’d said his piece. “I know she had everyone else fooled as well, but for a Bajoran…” He shook his head slowly. “She had everything worked out perfectly: the stories of her childhood, her family back on Bajor. She knew every custom, her Rakanthan accent was flawless, she…” Paling again, he froze, until, accepting Jor’s touch on his shoulder, he continued, “She even performed the ritual death chant for Forel…”

Forel. The Bajoran who’d been killed in the botched demolition of a bunker in their early days in the Maquis. Tabor’s friend. Their friend.  

Tabor cleared his throat, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment, his head bowed. “Forel’s death, the explosives that went off in his hands…”

“You think the detonator wasn’t faulty, after all?” Jor said, not liking where this was headed. In hindsight, many things were becoming clear, floating at the back of her mind, vying for her attention.

“Seska prepared the explosives,” Tabor said, opening his eyes once more. “We all thought it had to be a faulty detonator, because Seska was too good to get it wrong.”

“Seska never liked Forel, did she?”

“So, she killed him. She set those explosives so they’d go off early. But for chance, B’Elanna would have been blown up as well. And Seska was supposed to be B’Elanna’s _friend_.”

He moved to sit, finally, placing his cup down on the coffee table and leaning forwards to hold his head in his hands. Jor felt like doing the same, but that wouldn’t help matters. Instead, she perched beside him on the sofa and waited.

Seska’s betrayal – though it wasn’t really a betrayal, was it, if she’d been working for the Cardassians all along? – cut deeply. Seska had been annoying, scheming, and outspoken. But she’d fired at Cardassian troops on Quatal. She’d built bombs that had been used to destroy a Cardassian cargo ship docked at a Kobliad orbital station. When Roberto had been pinned down by Cardassian infantry fire on Rondac III, Seska had been the first to crawl out from behind cover and pull the wounded man to safety. Had she ever sympathised with the Maquis she’d lived and fought alongside? Or had every one of her actions been a part of a grander, insidious scheme to gather intelligence on the Maquis and cause disruption to their activities?

After a minute, Tabor raised his head, rubbed his face with both hands and sat upright, meeting Jor’s concerned gaze. “The way she wheedled information out of people, even things it was clear people didn’t want to talk about… Cardassian Intelligence must have very thorough profiles of every one of us.”

“Not of me, they won’t,” Jor disputed, feeling relieved that Seska had been denied the satisfaction of extorting at least one ‘life history’. “I kept my mouth shut whenever she started on me.”

“But she made it almost impossible for most people not to tell her anything she wanted to know,” Tabor replied bitterly. “Only the most … guarded people could keep things from her.”

Jor nodded. “Looking back, she was so damn nosy … but none of us suspected a thing.”

“We didn’t suspect Tuvok either,” Tabor said, with a humourless laugh.

“They were both trained intelligence operatives and highly skilled at their jobs. Most of us have had no military training – no instruction on how to detect spies in our midst. If the leadership let someone in, we assumed that person was genuine.”

Running one hand through his short hair, Tabor reached for his tea with the other and took another sip. “Wrong or not, I just know I’d feel less of an idiot if she’d been posing as a human or a Bolian instead of a Bajoran.”

He sat back again, retaining his cup. Jor did likewise. Despite the fraught circumstances of their conversation, the silence that they sat in now was not uncomfortable. They’d done this many times before after some unpleasant news had reached their ears, or after they’d been directly involved in an engagement with the enemy or in mopping up some mess that the Cardassians had left in the DMZ. They’d talk, drink, and then just sit and think together. Jor found that the presence of most other people got in the way when she needed to sort through the ramifications of difficult events, even if whoever she was with stayed mute. But sitting quietly with Tabor had the opposite effect. Somehow, in his company, she could deal with such things better.

Seska’s transformation into a Bajoran must have been performed by experts in the field - the Obsidian Order. The Cardassian intelligence agency was rumoured to recruit only the brightest and best to serve as operatives. Seska fit that bill, for sure. But Tuvok was no slouch in matters of espionage. If anyone should have spotted her duplicity, it was him. No doubt Tuvok would be running a full investigation into how she had passed his notice until now. Now that she thought about the Vulcan, Jor wondered whether Seska had suspected that he was a Starfleet officer back on the _Val Jean_.

Was it possible anyone else on _Voyager_ was not who they claimed to be? A more likely scenario was that there could be other Cardassian infiltrators among the Maquis in the Alpha Quadrant. There was no way to get a message back to tell them of Seska’s ‘betrayal’. Jor’s heart sank at the thought of information Seska had fed to the Cardassians endangering Nelson and the other Maquis that were not on _Voyager_. The sense of utter helplessness at being out of the fight pushed to the surface of Jor’s emotions.

As _Voyager_ ’s journey had gone on, Jor had found the proportion of her time spent thinking about events in the DMZ and the Badlands had dwindled. She asked Tabor if it was the same with him.

He nodded, eyes guilty. “There’s been so much else to think about.” And his jaw dropped. “I’m supposed to be on duty,” he said, jolting upright and pushing off the sofa onto his feet. “I was dropping off a report to Ensign Kim on the bridge and then I was due to take a short break when I ran into Ayala then came to find you. My team will have been expecting me back by now.”

“Comm them. Say you’re not feeling well.”

He shook his head. “No. I should get back to work. Otherwise Seska causes more disruption, doesn’t she?” Offering Jor a weak smile, he assured her, “I feel all right now.”

But Jor knew him a lot better than that. She raised a sceptical eyebrow.

“Better than I did half an hour ago then,” he said with a sigh. “I’ll be all right.”

And he would be. She was sure of that. Tabor was the epitome of a survivor. He’d be shaken by this for a while. He’d carry the weight of it forever. But he wouldn’t let it get in his way for long.

 

* * *

 

_Learning Curve_

“Jarvin hasn’t wasted any time, has he?”

Tabor followed Jor’s eyes as she stared at Jarvin, their feisty fellow Maquis, getting very friendly with Ensign Trumari in a shadowy corner across the main room of Sandrine’s bar.

“And she’s in Quantum Mechanics,” Jor continued. “Seems a bit intellectual for Jarvin, don’t you think?”

Tabor brought his attention back to his drink. Jarvin and Trumari clearly didn’t value their privacy all that much, but Tabor felt the need to give it to the pair of them, nonetheless.

Jor, who was still finding the spectacle entertaining, nudged his arm with her elbow. “Look, Lieutenant Rollins is going over to them.”

Tabor glanced over to the corner again to see Rollins engaged in conversation with the amorous pair. Rollins pointed to the exit of the holodeck – and thus the bar – and Jarvin and Trumari followed his prompting and left, Trumari trying in vain to tame her tousled hair. Of all the Maquis to hook up with a member of Starfleet, Tabor would never have expected Jarvin.  

Between that dark corner and the table at which Tabor and Jor sat stood the pool table, the focal point of the smoky bar. Tom Paris was playing Carlson at the moment, and the pilot was about to win his fifth straight game. The rule of ‘winner stays on’ was in force, and a small queue had formed made up of those eager to take on Paris at the game he clearly excelled at. Tabor and Jor preferred to watch from the side lines. Chell had shared their table for a while, but a few minutes earlier, the Bolian had answered Neelix’s hail for ‘all hungry crewmen to report to the mess hall’ where the Talaxian had an inexplicable amount of leftovers to dispose of from the evening’s main course – a waxworm and leola root stir fry. Tabor had passed that gourmet meal over in favour of a bowl of dry breakfast cereal.

Chell’s departure was appreciated. Not that Tabor hadn’t learned to tolerate the Bolian, but, after spending an eight hour shift with him, he’d been looking forward to resting his ears. Opportunities to spend off duty time with Jor had been infrequent over the six months that they’d spent on _Voyager_ , and, for that reason also, Tabor said a silent thank you to Neelix for the Talaxian being such an awful chef. Holding a serious conversation with Jor when Chell was in the equation was near impossible, and Tabor and Jor had a lot to catch up on.

After Seska had left the ship, then Durst had been murdered by the Vidiians, there’d been some reassigning of quarters. Henley got Seska’s quarters, and Jor got to enjoy some peaceful nights again without Henley chattering until all hours and keeping her awake.    

“Looks like B’Elanna’s got an admirer as well,” Jor remarked, nodding to the pool table.

Tabor’s eyes narrowed. “Paris?”

Jor laughed. “No. Bristow.”

Paris had seen off Carlson’s challenge, and the latest candidate to attempt the thwarting of the pilot’s winning run was the tall young ensign that worked in phaser maintenance. Bristow’s full attention was not on the table, however, but aimed at B’Elanna’s location at the bar. Paris won again. A few people were even heard to applaud.

Tabor had been one of the few people to see B’Elanna in the days following her return to _Voyager_ after she was held prisoner by the Vidiians. As her Klingon DNA was reintegrated, and both her external appearance and internal organs were changed back to reflect the Doctor’s treatment, she’d stayed in her quarters feeling nauseated and unable to do anything much other than lie down. She’d moved Tabor off shuttle maintenance to work in Main Engineering so that he could relay instructions and report back to her in her quarters as she recovered. Strange as it seemed, B’Elanna had allowed Paris to pay her a brief visit in that time, yet Hogan and Ayala had been deterred.  

Swallowing a mouthful of his synthale, Tabor then turned to Jor. “Do you think it’s strange how so many of us never use our given names?”

Jor took a sip of her raktajino. “I’ve never really noticed,” she said, in a tone that belied her assertion. “And what does it matter? Vulcans only have one name. It’s the same with Neelix and Kes. Hell, the EMH doesn’t even have a name.”

Against his better judgement perhaps, Tabor pressed on. “I know it’s not unusual in an environment like the Maquis or Starfleet to keep from using personal names, but I don’t even know the full names of some of the Maquis I’ve fought alongside for two years. Like Jarvin. Or Gerron. And you and I never call each other by our given names.”

“I’m used to being known as just ‘Jor’,” Jor said briskly. “It suits me just fine. That’s all I’ve ever used since I joined the Maquis. I didn’t even use my given name on Salva IV, did I?”

No, she hadn’t. Tabor made an allowance for her abruptness. He’d struck a nerve, and he should have seen her reaction coming. But, before he could change the subject, she surprised him by continuing to explain.

“I think it’s the same with a lot of us, isn’t it? Not just me. There’s a clear separation between life since joining the Maquis, and life before whatever caused us to join the fight. In some of us that’s reflected in how we refer to ourselves now. I don’t know much about psychology, but...”

He nodded. “I’m sorry. I won’t mention it again.”

“No. It’s all right. It is an interesting observation.”

They resumed their spectating of Paris and his successive victims – Jetal, Swinn, and then Darwin each gave the pilot little to worry about. Paris magnanimously then gave up his position to give someone else a chance to win, sloping off to join Kim and Kes on the other side of the room.

Tabor got up to fetch refills for Jor and himself. Bristow was lingering next to B’Elanna like a puppy wanting a pat on the head. B’Elanna appeared not to notice. Bristow couldn’t be more different from B’Elanna’s last few suitors, all of whom had been what Jor referred to as ‘bad boys’. Tabor headed back to the table unable to miss finding the amusement in the scene. Amusement that evaporated when he saw that Jor had company. Male company. And a drink in front of her. Annoyed and perplexed, Tabor almost stopped in his tracks, before schooling his features back to neutral and continuing onwards.

He set the drinks down on the table a little heavily, sloshing his synthale over the sides of his glass to leave a puddle on the table. Throwing an enquiring glance at Jor, Tabor took the seat that Chell had earlier vacated. A strong odour hung in the air. An odour that hadn’t been present before Tabor had left the table.

“You’ve met Pablo, haven’t you?” Jor asked Tabor by way of introduction to the well-groomed, fair-haired, and, apparently, aftershave-doused man who now occupied Tabor’s seat.

“I don’t think we’ve ever been introduced,” Tabor said, rising to his feet again and offering the man – Ensign Baytart – his right hand. Seeming a little surprised by Tabor’s formal demonstration of human manners, Baytart paused before standing and shaking Tabor’s hand. With that out of the way, Tabor sat back down and pushed over the refill he’d brought Jor so that it clinked the glass of wine already in front of her.

“Pablo had just ordered this for Henley, when she decided she wasn’t feeling so good and went back to her quarters,” Jor explained. “He saw that I was without a drink and asked if I’d like it.”

“It’s not holographic,” Baytart interjected. “I used my replicator rations on it.”

“Same here,” Tabor said, tapping a finger to the side of the glass he’d brought Jor, his unruffled façade beginning to slip. It wasn’t like Henley to turn down a free drink – a free anything, in fact. Especially when there was a man involved. That was odd in itself. Tabor drank from his synthale, accidentally on purpose nudging Jor’s knee under the table with his own.

“Pablo’s quarters are opposite mine,” Jor said hastily.

“We’re always bumping into each other in the turbolift,” said Baytart, “but we never have time to stop and talk.”

“I see,” Tabor replied. He didn’t understand quite why Baytart had to talk to Jor right this minute, when, unless the ensign had been blinkered during the time he’d spent in Henley’s company, he would have observed that Jor already had someone to talk to. Maybe it shouldn’t have bothered Tabor as much as it did, but he and Jor had so little free time together that he wanted it to be well-spent. Now Tabor would have to listen to Baytart and make an effort to keep talk to subjects that were inclusive to the man.

Perhaps Henley’s sharp exit had been triggered by Baytart’s conversational skills. For the next five minutes he proceeded to regale his two listeners with an explanation of why juggling was the best exercise one could have for both body and mind. Having forgotten to pack his set of juggling rings when he’d boarded _Voyager_ back on DS9, Baytart had taken to practising his skill with other objects. He boasted that he could keep six phasers and a tricorders in the air for five minutes and offered a demonstration. Conversation then drifted to the listing of crewmembers whose quarters were also on deck four and an assessment of whether or not they made such noise that it could be heard through the bulkheads. Tabor might have dozed off into his synthale if he hadn’t been keenly gauging Jor’s reaction to Baytart to see if she was as bored by the man as he was. In fairness, Baytart seemed like a nice enough guy, but his technique for picking up women – if that’s what he was up to – needed some work.    

Jor’s attention hadn’t wavered from ‘Pablo’. Maybe she was genuinely interested in what he had to say. Or just interested in him. People were starting to pair up… On that thought, Tabor turned his gaze outward into the room. Without meaning to, he caught Tom Paris’s eye. The pilot was propped up against the bar now, alone. Paris’s gaze shifted to Tabor’s right, his mouth twitching upwards slightly into a half smile as he spotted Baytart and Jor. And then he headed straight over.

“Pablo!” Paris called jovially. “There you are. Do you have a minute? I’ve been meaning to ask you something about the navigation logs for the _Drake_.”

Baytart, forced to stop talking in mid-sentence, frowned for a split second then nodded amiably to Paris, whose hand now rested on the back of Tabor’s chair.

“I’d ask Jenkins or Culhane, but you’re more experienced than they are,” Paris explained.

Baytart smiled broadly at that compliment. It was more of a fact really, but Baytart took it as praise. He didn’t move from his seat though, seeming to expect Paris to sit down next to him on the other side from Jor.

Paris cleared his throat. “Why don’t you join me over there,” he went on. “I’m sure these good people don’t want to listen to pilot-talk.”

Off duty or not, Paris was Baytart’s superior, and, finally realising that he would have to get up and leave, Baytart offered Jor an apologetic smile. Unhurriedly, Baytart gathered his drink, rose and let Paris lead him away to another table.

Tabor’s eyes tracked the two for a moment, deciding that the next time an opportunity arose, he would have to buy Paris a drink. Clearing his throat, he turned back to Jor, finding her current expression difficult to read. “He seems … nice,” Tabor said searchingly.

“He’s certainly easy on the eyes,” Jor answered. “Not so easy on the ears though.”

“Maybe that’s why Henley ran out on him,” Tabor ventured. “She couldn’t get a word in.”

Jor snorted. “I expect we’ll hear all about it soon enough.”

###

In the few days that followed, there was plenty to be heard from Henley, who was among the four unlucky Maquis selectees for Tuvok’s training course in Starfleet operations. Jor bore the brunt of Henley’s whining, as usual. There was no hiding on _Voyager_. One only had to ask the computer for a fellow crewmate’s location and the computer would give it freely. One evening, Jor had tried to evade Henley by taking refuge in Tabor’s quarters, but Henley had tracked her down nonetheless.

Tabor had first heard about the field training from Chell. Chell’s wasn’t the most objective account, perhaps, but it was certainly exhaustive, in every sense of the word. Rumours flew around that all the Maquis on board were to undergo the training. Tabor wasn’t afraid of exercise, but running circuits around the ship via Jefferies tubes and with the artificial gravity increased wasn’t an enticing prospect. On asking Chakotay if the rumours were true, the First Officer had assured him that there were no definite plans in place for any further field training of the sort that the four Maquis had undergone with Tuvok.

Whatever Tuvok’s methods, they worked. Chell’s attitude to doing things in an organised and efficient manner improved. The Bolian even talked less – for a few days, at least. Dalby, who’d always been a hard worker before, kept a better lid on his temper. Henley, maybe in fear of further sessions with the Vulcan, was heard offering to work extra duty shifts.

And Gerron stopped wearing his earring.

Unlike Tabor, who’d taken his Bajoran earring off as soon as he’d donned the Starfleet uniform that first time, Gerron had continued to wear his earring. As far as Tabor was aware, Gerron had not been asked to stop wearing it until Tuvok had selected him for training. Perhaps the senior officers had made a decision to be lenient on such issues until the Maquis had had a chance to adjust a little. But, from now on, Gerron was forbidden from wearing the earring when on duty. Tabor didn’t know if he put it back on when he was off duty. Gerron was rarely seen outside of his quarters except when he was working, though Chell said the younger Bajoran had accepted an invitation from Dalby to play hoverball next week on the holodeck.

According to B’Elanna, a ship’s captain could grant special dispensation to allow a crewmember to wear an item of religious or cultural significance. Janeway had, apparently, decided against making any such allowances. Not that it was likely that Gerron had made any appeal to the Captain on the matter, as Tabor told Jor one evening a couple of weeks later.

“Do you miss it?” Jor asked him, referring to Tabor’s own earring and tugging on her own right earlobe as if he could possibly fail to understand her meaning. Thanks to B’Elanna making some changes in engineering, Jor had found herself transferred onto Beta shift. It meant that Tabor could share leisure time with her again, just like old times. Almost like old times. This particular evening they’d forgone Sandrine’s in favour of Tabor’s quarters.

Looking away from Jor, Tabor’s eyes turned to a random spot on the carpet as he considered his response carefully. Jor let him think without trying to prompt further. She knew he’d answer when he was ready. He felt her eyes on him for a while, before she turned her attention to the plate of replicated chips on her lap. She even managed to crunch quietly.

At first he’d noticed the earring’s absence as one would notice a change in hairstyle or a smooth face after a long period of wearing a beard. Tabor wasn’t apt to check his appearance whenever he passed a mirror or some other reflective surface, so it was when he’d gone to scratch his face, wash, or to pull his clothes over his head that he’d been most aware of his bare earlobe. But as far as feeling any kind of emotional loss… “I think I’m actually relieved in a way,” he said, shifting his gaze back to Jor, who had redirected her stare towards his face when he’d started to speak.

“Relieved?” she asked, her brow furrowing.

Before he could give a coherent explanation to Jor, Tabor had to figure out exactly what he’d meant by that statement himself. Which involved more staring into space as he thought hard about an issue that he’d only allowed himself to contemplate on a few isolated occasions, none of them recent. He might have expected Jor to ask him about this before, but, for whatever reason, the subject had never come up in their many conversations. After another long silence, Tabor sucked in a deep breath, and then answered, “Relieved that I have an excuse to not wear it anymore. I’d wanted to stop wearing it for a while.”

Jor opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again, finally deciding to proceed with, “Then why didn’t you? Li Paz –”

“Li Paz is a staunch atheist,” Tabor cut in, having guessed that she might cite Li Paz’s atypical example. “He stopped wearing his earring to make a point. He doesn’t care if other Bajorans are offended by his attitude. He invites them to notice so he can try to convert them to his way of thinking.” Running a palm across his brow, Tabor tried to organise his thoughts further. Beside him, Jor sat unmoving, her steady presence a catalyst to his deliberations. “Bajorans tend to be suspicious of those that don’t wear the earring,” he explained. “It’s such a strong tradition – a symbol of our identity – that it’s hard to understand why anyone would choose to stop observing it. And even the Cardassians allowed us to wear them, all through the Occupation. So, it seems strange to me that Janeway has ruled against it. I can understand when safety is involved – in combat or when wearing environmental suits – but in day to day operations? Anyway…” He was moving off topic. Rising from his seat, he walked slowly over to the replicator and ordered himself a fresh glass of water, which he downed in one go.

Jor waited patiently for him to return to the sofa before she asked, “Then … are you saying you don’t believe in the Prophets anymore?”

With anyone else Tabor would have changed the subject completely then. But ‘anyone else’ wouldn’t have asked him these questions. His heart raced as he came to appreciate a truth that it might have been easier not to acknowledge. Or would it, in the long run? “I don’t know that I ever really believed,” he admitted, speaking the words with difficulty, but feeling better for having said them aloud. “I just conformed. Everybody did. The Cardassians would have loved it if large sections of Bajoran society had publicly disavowed the religion. Even Li Paz pretended to be a devout follower of the Prophets when he was in the Resistance. But, when I think about it, going through the motions – the rituals and observances – without truly believing that there’s a real purpose or a real meaning to them … that’s hypocritical. Somehow, it seems disrespectful to those that believe in earnest.” He tugged on his earlobe as Jor had done earlier on her own. “It started to feel more wrong to wear the earring than it did to take it off, but I didn’t want to stand out back in the Alpha Quadrant. I didn’t want to draw any attention to myself.”

“You never said anything,” Jor said, a hint of accusation in her tone.

Tabor wasn’t obliged to discuss his every innermost thought with her, of course. But, seeing as they kept so little from each other, he could understand that she might feel slighted by his reticence.

“It’s only now that I’m really giving the issue the time that it deserves, I suppose,” he said evenly, reaching over to grab some chips before Jor ate them all, though her pace of consumption had slowed in the wake of his revelations. “But not wearing the earring doesn’t mean that I’m not proud to be a Bajoran,” he emphasised. “It’s not the earring that defines my identity.”

Jor shook her head. “No, of course not,” she said, tentatively.

“And it’s not this either,” Tabor said, pinching the top of his nose and narrowing his eyes in mock seriousness. From time to time, he liked to tease her about the way she’d reacted at their first meeting on Salva IV – her first face-to-face encounter with a non-human.

First smiling at his successful attempt to lighten the mood, Jor then rolled her eyes at him. “No, it’s that fondness you have for that tasteless Bajoran ale. There must be a specific gene that you people have in order to appreciate it.”

Tabor laughed lightly. “Actually, that gene might be specific to me. A lot of Bajorans can’t stand the stuff.” Turning away from her for a moment, he took up the PADD that had been sitting on the arm of the sofa beside him. “As we’re speaking of Bajor…” He thumbed on the PADD and handed it to her, lifting the empty plate from her lap and taking it over to the replicator for recycling. They’d have to make do with the bowl of trimpa stalks – leftovers from lunch – for the rest of the night. He was low on rations.

Jor scrutinized the image on the screen with interest, reading the caption beneath. “Tarija Point?”

“Ensign Martin in ops paints in his spare time. Landscapes, mostly. I was there in the mess hall when he offered to paint Darwin’s hometown on Earth for him. From a holophoto. Something to hang on the wall in his quarters. When I showed an interest, Martin said he’d be glad to paint something for me too, as long as I replicated the materials for him to use – the canvas, paints and extra brushes. I found that picture in the ship’s library files.”

“But … you never lived here, did you?” Jor asked, looking up from the PADD.

Tabor returned to the sofa, shaking his head. “No way,” he said, reining in the sharpness that threatened his tone. “There’s nowhere I lived on Bajor that I’d want a painting of.”

“Well, I didn’t think so, but…?”

“Tarija is where my grandparents lived before the Occupation. In a village just inland from that place.” He had to unclench his jaw before he could continue to speak. “Before the Cardassians rounded up everyone in the village and transported them five hundred kilometres away to work in the forced labour camps.” Beckoning for Jor to pass the PADD back to him, Tabor studied the image for himself once again. In the foreground was the beach with its abundant rock pools. Slick coverings of green and purple seaweeds added colour amid the greys. Towards the top of the picture, the headland itself split the surging sea from the overcast sky. The weather had been gloomy on the day that the image was recorded, but Tabor found the scene enticing nevertheless. “I’d like to visit there someday,” he said. “If we ever get back to the Alpha Quadrant.”

 _Voyager_ ’s holodeck had an extensive choice of programs that simulated locations on Earth and other Federation worlds. But the selection of Bajoran locales that could be loaded had proven to be disappointing, the list limited to the major cities and a few places that the Provisional Government wished to promote as tourist resorts. Fortunately, the still images of Bajor in the ship’s library were far more plentiful.

Jor smiled as he tore his eyes away from the image to glance back up. “You should. I think it would be good for you. And, what’s more,” she said, sweeping a hand though the air, “it’ll be good to get these quarters looking more homely by adding some personal items.”

“Sorry,” Tabor re-joined, thumbing off the PADD and setting it down to fill the gap between them. “But we haven’t exactly visited a great many retail establishments lately where I could buy furnishings.”

“What happened to those sculptures you were given on Sikaris?” she asked, sitting forward and craning her neck for her eyes to search the entirety of the room.

Tabor cursed inwardly. He’d only agreed to take the ugly figurines from the Sikarian artist who’d pressed them into his hands because Jor had said they were elegant. And then a month or so ago, Neelix had dropped by on an impromptu morale officer visit and spotted them… “I found out they were actually bone carvings,” Tabor said, suppressing a shudder. “Neelix liked the look of them, and … as I didn’t like the idea of having them around once he told me how they were made, I said he could take them.”    

“So, you’ve gone vegetarian now?” Jor queried sceptically.

It was a fair question given that she knew he wasn’t squeamish about animal products. But it wasn’t the use of animal products that he took issue with. It was the fact that bone carving was a particularly Cardassian art form. Taspar bone was the material of choice for most Cardassian sculptors, but there’d been substantiated reports of certain Legates and Guls commissioning pieces made from other source material during the Occupation. Jor obviously knew nothing of this, or she wouldn’t have made her flippant remark. And if he elaborated further, she’d feel bad about it. So much for honesty. “I’m sure Neelix will let you have them if you ask him,” Tabor said evasively, unable to meet Jor’s eyes and hoping that she’d let this subject drop.

Which she did, after a moment, with a shrug. But she was right about the lack of personal items in his quarters. When he had company, he didn’t notice the bare walls and the general starkness of the place. But when he walked in through the door alone, he couldn’t miss the fact that everything was so grey and uninviting. Even the _Val Jean_ ’s cramped and grubby bunkrooms had been decorated with personal items. Pictures of loved ones had been pinned to the walls, mementos from the fallen had hung from the doors of the overhead lockers – McCreary’s favourite bandana, Forel’s lucky pledge bracelet. In her own quarters here on _Voyager_ , Jor had several potted plants that she’d procured from Kes adding vibrancy to the room. A luxurious Sikarian bedspread supplemented her Starfleet-issue sheets. He should follow Jor’s example. These quarters might be his only home for a very long time, and, as he became more adept at his work, he didn’t feel the need to put in so many extra shifts in engineering to learn by shadowing the Academy graduates.

“Now that we seem to be having more free time, I guess I should take up a hobby,” he announced, ending the silence. “Perhaps something creative. Carey’s started building a miniature _Voyager_ to give to his kids when he gets home.”

Jor brightened, relaxing back into the cushions again. “And Chell’s knitting with the twelve balls of Paraka wool that Neelix found on his ship.”

Tabor snorted. “A hat to keep his head warm?”

“Don’t be so … disrespectful,” Jor said, breaking into laughter.

“Oh, come on, it’s _Chell_ we’re talking about,” Tabor returned. “Like you’ve never found him to be a source of amusement.”

Jor let out an exaggerated sigh. “Life would be a lot less colourful without him,” she said, deadpan, causing Tabor to choke on a mouthful of trimpa stalk. Which wasn’t all that difficult given the fiery taste and sharp texture to the stuff. She passed him her glass of water to wash it down.

“I heard Darwin’s teaching Golwat to play durotta,” she told him, as he breathed easily again.

“And Bronowski’s learning to play the accordion…” Tabor halted, seeing Jor tense up suddenly. “What?” he asked, with concern.

Swallowing hard, she took an excessive interest in the backs of her hands, then sighed again – this time with no embellishment – and looked up. “It’s just something Ayala told me – told Henley, but I was there. He wasn’t supposed to say anything, but Henley got him to reveal a couple of details … about what the security team found when they cleared out Seska’s quarters.”

At the mention of _her_ name, Tabor felt the colour drain from his face, every trace of his good humour vanishing. “What?” he asked again, abruptly this time.

“She – Seska – had started replicating the parts to build a belaklavion. Remember she said she’d always wanted to learn to play it?”

Tabor forced slow, deep breaths. The belaklavion: the most difficult of all Bajoran musical instruments to master. Its expert players were held in the highest regard. “Well, there you have it,” he said gruffly. “Seska’s a prime example of how looking Bajoran, making a grand public show of following religious observances and cultural traditions, doesn’t make someone Bajoran.”

“I wasn’t sure whether I should tell you. I knew it would upset you to hear it.”

Nodding, he reassured her, saying, “It’s all right. I’d still rather know.”

“What do you think she’s doing with the Kazon?” Jor said, cautiously. “Do you think she’s even still alive?”

Though they hadn’t established that ‘Seska’ should be a prohibited subject, neither Jor nor Tabor had chosen to mention her in recent weeks. The Cardassian had, however, been in Tabor’s thoughts, much to his disgust. “If she’s making herself useful to them and – or – if she’s managed to charm them like she did Chakotay, then she’ll be thriving,” Tabor said. Seska would have burrowed her way into the Kazon hierarchy like a hungry vole into an open power conduit. Unlike her fellow vermin, however, an operative of Seska’s calibre was likely to re-emerge from her infiltrations, stronger and more ambitious than before. Instinctively, Tabor turned his head to glance out of the long windows into space beyond. Somewhere out there, Seska would be scheming. She’d be making the Kazon promises and working out a way to keep them. With a hard pit forming in his stomach, Tabor looked back to Jor. “I have an unpleasant feeling that we’ll see her again sometime.”


	4. Chapter 4

_Persistence of Vision_

Jor was in the mess hall when it started. Carey was the first to succumb, dropping his fully-laden meal tray to the floor and just standing stock still, staring dumbly at the wall behind the table that he’d been headed to. Doyle sprang up from his chair to Carey’s aid, but nothing would rouse the Deputy Chief from his trance: not the nudge on his arm, nor the hand waved in front of his face. Doyle called Carey by his name, rank, and then just plain ‘Joe’, but no response was forthcoming.

As ranking officer, Lieutenant Baxter then took charge, flustered though he was by the sudden onset of Carey’s symptoms. With Doyle’s help, Baxter manoeuvred Carey onto a chair. Despite his stiff standing posture, Carey’s knees did bend as the two men got him to sit down. But unaffected by the change in his position, Carey’s gaze stayed blank. Jor left her place in the now disorderly dinner queue, knelt beside the entranced engineer, and, as neither Baxter nor Doyle had yet thought to, she took it upon herself to check Carey’s pulse. “Strong and steady,” Jor reported to Baxter. Then, as Baxter announced that he’d comm sickbay and tell the EMH to prepare for a patient, Baxter himself halted, mid-sentence, and slumped back from his crouch to settle on the floor, his back propped up against a table leg. Another crash came from behind Jor, then another. She turned to look. Darwin and Grimes had dropped what they’d been carrying and stood as Carey had, unresponsive, motionless except for the steady rise and fall of their chests.

Jor stayed kneeling and commed Sickbay herself.

_“Are they in any immediate danger?”_ queried the Doctor. _“I’m getting similar reports from all over the ship.”_

“They’re breathing all right, if that’s what you mean,” Jor told him. “But –”

_“Then please stay calm, and stand by for further instructions,”_ he advised in that patronising, irritating tone that he had.

‘Stand by’ might be the only thing Jor would be doing if she couldn’t find out what was happening to her crewmates. “We should contact the bridge,” she said to Doyle beside her. But he too had succumbed to the same affliction as the others now.

And Jor herself was next.

###

She’d blacked out to ‘wake up’ in the hospital on Orcadia, just like she had. Before. Four years ago. With tubes stuffed up her nose, down her throat, in the backs of her hands. Monitors clipped to her fingertips. Her left wrist heavily bandaged. The same orderly standing over her, telling her she would be all right now, calling for the doctor.

Reaching up with her right hand, trailing an IV line from the back of it, she felt for the top of her head above her left temple and found a dressing stuck there too. Everything was the same. How could she be back here? Back, not only in place, but in time, to _this_. Here.

The same doctor came, grim-faced, but managing the same tired smile when he saw that Jor’s eyes had opened. It seemed she was set to relive the whole damn experience. It had to be a delusion, some kind of enforced recreation of events. Or was she really in the past? Could she change things? Anything?

Apparently not.

The doctor and his aide gently removed the tubes from her throat and nose. Jor coughed, tried to speak, but could only rasp incoherently. They sat her up to take small sips of water, just as she knew they would. As they had last time. And she looked around. Through bleary eyes she saw the other beds, all full of patients, medics scurrying about. She heard monitors bleeping, ventilators hissing, the same siren blaring somewhere in the distance outside.

Then came the questions, the doctor shining a light into her eyes, checking her reflexes as he asked her what she remembered about the attack on the town. She grew agitated as she failed to recall how she’d got into this state, even though she knew. Now. But, back then, she’d been vague on the details until the doctor had pressed a hypospray – Orcadia did have some modern medicine – to her neck and the fog between her ears had cleared. As it did when he dosed her again. Now. Again.

She’d told him that she’d been walking to work, passing the vehicle workshop on Main Street when, without any warning, the grey-skinned alien hands had reached around from behind her to clamp over her mouth, slick and cold.

“Keep walking,” a guttural voice had breathed into her ear. Stunned, it had taken a prod in the back – the business end of a weapon, most likely – to get her trembling legs to move forwards. The alien – a Cardassian, she’d guessed, though she’d never met one – had driven her through the doors of the workshop, inside of which three women (that she knew) and a couple of men (that she couldn’t identify) stood lined up, faces pressed against the far wall, their hands bound behind their backs with metal restraints. It was then that Jor had struggled in her captor’s grip – disruptor in her back, be damned. She’d tried to twist around to get a look at its face. It – he – had smacked her on the back of her head, shoved her forwards, and she’d fallen, cracking her head on the corner of a desk. She’d blacked out before hitting the ground, still without having seen the face of her attacker.

This time, she’d tell the doctor the truth, she decided. But her mouth wouldn’t speak the words she wanted it to, repeating instead the story that she’d told him before: that she’d returned to consciousness when the paramedics had arrived. In reality, she’d woken long before then. The first time she’d come to, dazed, blood pooled on the floor before her eyes, feeling it in her hair, under her nose. She’d been unable to get her arms or legs to move, but had been about to try crying out until she’d heard the noises, and even in that groggy state had realised what was going on around her. And so, she’d played dead, squeezing her eyes shut again, wishing that her ears could be closed likewise, trying not to make a single sound. And she had eventually, at some point, from blood loss or shock or the neurological damage, lost consciousness again before the paramedics had arrived and roused her, only to place her under sedation again when they determined the severity of her head injuries.

It was only after answering the doctor’s questions that she’d thought to ask for her parents, growing agitated again when the doctor became evasive. “An attack on the town,” he’d said… “The whole town?” she’d demanded.

“Casualties are still being located and brought in,” had been his last solemn word on the subject, before rushing away to another bedside. She’d soon learned that the small hospital was overflowing. Between the targeted strikes on the town from orbit and the damage wreaked by the Cardassian raiding parties on the ground it was a wonder that anyone had been spared to tend to the injured. But, by design or by oversight, the hospital itself had escaped damage.

Two weeks later, having discovered that she had no one left on Orcadia to stay for, her home and her workplace razed to the ground, Jor had checked out of the overstretched hospital and made arrangements to get off planet as soon as possible. With a mind to never look back.

###

“And that’s when I woke up on the mess hall floor,” she said to Tabor across a corner table in Sandrine’s. “I’d re-lived that entire set of events in only a few hours.”

Jor had told the story of the Cardassian assault on her homeworld to Tabor before, not long after they’d met on Salva IV. But she’d negated to tell him the full extent of her ordeal – what she’d overheard and been powerless to act against – telling him only a similar version of events to that which she’d told the medical staff at the hospital.

She looked up from her clasped hands, releasing them as she did so, stretching the tension out of them. Tabor stared into his synthale, hunched over clenched fists that sat each side of his glass on the table. She could have told him the whole tale before now. But, at the time when she’d first spoken to him of her ordeal, she hadn’t known him very long, and putting the complete experience into words would have been more than she could cope with. It had been difficult enough to keep any composure as it was back then when she’d thought about the attack. Even now, if not in a public place, she’d have found it impossible to keep the tears at bay. It might have been better to have this conversation in private, to let all of the emotion out, once and for all. Alone with Tabor, she wouldn’t have been self-conscious about crying. But, oddly, he’d insisted on spending this evening out in company. Ironically, Sandrine’s had been almost deserted when they’d arrived and still wasn’t exactly busy. The telepathic assault by the Bothan alien or aliens – whoever he or they really were – had taken a heavy toll on the crew.

“There was nothing you could have done,” Tabor said after a long silence, redirecting his gaze upwards to meet her own. “Even if you’d managed to call out for help, I doubt anyone would have heard you except for the Cardassians. And then…” Pausing, he cleared his throat, unclenched one fist in order to raise his glass to his lips and drink. “You were in no condition to fight back,” he went on. “So, if they’d realised you were conscious…”

Nodding once, Jor reached for the dregs of her own drink: real alcohol tonight – Terran brandy. Neat. She needed it to chase away the cold that had crept down her spine with the retelling. There was no need for Tabor to speculate further. If the Cardassians had realised that she was conscious – still alive, even – then they would have had their ‘fun’ with her too. And at the end of that, she would either have been dead or wishing that she was. Of the five people that had been found in the vehicle workshop with her, three had been dead before the paramedics arrived. The other two had died later in the hospital: one from his wounds, the other from a drug overdose.

“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” Tabor continued quietly. “And to relive it. Any of it.”

“But I was one of the lucky ones really, wasn’t I?” Jor pondered aloud. “That’s how I have to think about it.” And she had been inexplicably lucky, and not just on that occasion, but many times since. Tabor didn’t offer any response to that, merely sitting there, silent and brooding.

Jor glanced around the bar. Most of the few people present sat in pairs, just talking in hushed voices and drinking: Celes and Telfer under the window, Jackson and Bendera near the entrance doors, Dalby on his own, lost in thought. Ashmore and Mulcahey played pool, game after game, with no calls of celebration in winning or curses in losing. Only a gentle murmur of conversation came from them as from the others. Each pair was far enough away from any other that there was little chance of actual words being overheard unless one made a point of eavesdropping. The holographic patrons were absent; someone must have had the good sense to remove them from the program temporarily. Nobody wanted any of Tom Paris’s sleazy creations pestering them tonight.

Turning back to Tabor, Jor watched him drain his glass, stand, and go to fetch a refill. When he got back, she would ask him about his own hallucination. He’d been reluctant to discuss anything to do with the previous day’s events with her until she’d made it clear that she needed to talk to someone about the memories she’d been forced to relive and, naturally, she needed that listener to be him. Revisiting those memories had been painful, but at least after talking to Tabor she felt a little better about things. Now she’d help him in the same way. If he’d let her.

Between his life in the Maquis, his time in the Bajoran refugee camps on Valo II, and his childhood on occupied Bajor, Tabor had had countless difficult experiences that would be painful for him to relive. And there was also the possibility that his delusions had included possible future traumas as well – that the alien had somehow taken Tabor’s worst fears and used them to engineer a vision of events that _might_ come to pass, but hadn’t as yet. Poor Chell had hallucinated that he was marooned alone on a barren wasteland with nothing to eat. Starvation and abandonment, he said, were his greatest fears. Ayala had imagined that he was back home with his children: the delusion itself not unpleasant until he’d woken and realised he was still in the Delta Quadrant. Henley – bizarrely – was remaining tight-lipped about what she’d hallucinated. Whatever the subject matter, she didn’t seem upset by it, merely reflective.

Becoming impatient for Tabor to return, Jor twisted around to see why he was taking so long. Spying him in conversation with the bartender – odd, as Tabor usually ignored the holographic characters – she turned back around and found Ken Dalby pulling up a chair beside her.    

“May I?” he asked, already seated before she’d had time to respond.

She nodded, hoping that he’d not stay too long once Tabor returned, but happy enough to have company in the meantime.

“Interesting couple of days,” Dalby commented wryly. “I wish we could have blasted that bastard alien into tiny pieces for messing with us like that.”

Jor arched an eyebrow. “Not that I disagree with you in theory,” she said, “but maybe in some cases some good can come from what happened.”

Dalby considered that for a moment. “Doesn’t excuse the fact that we were … violated though, does it?”

“No,” Jor agreed, wondering if politeness required that she ask what Dalby had seen in his own delusions or if were more tactful to dampen her curiosity and not enquire. Dalby wasn’t the easiest person to read at times. On occasions, he’d been more than willing to share his past experiences with his fellow Maquis, even without Seska’s ‘encouragement’. Then, at other times, he was a closed book, withdrawn and seeming to prefer it that way. Tabor’s return to the table spared Jor having to think further about the issue.

“I’m worried about Gerron,” Dalby declared, before Tabor had even finished pulling in his chair and setting down his full glass. Ktarian beer this time by the look of it.

When Tabor – at whom Dalby had directed his statement – failed to respond, Jor intervened. “How so?” she enquired, her eyes fixed curiously on Tabor. Her own drink had been empty before he’d left her. He hadn’t noticed.

“We were supposed to play hoverball on the holodeck later,” Dalby explained. “But Gerron left a message saying he wasn’t feeling well and was cancelling on me.”

Tabor shrugged. “So, he’s not feeling well.”

“But I think it’s because of whatever happened to him yesterday,” Dalby said. “I stopped by his quarters, he came to the door, wouldn’t let me in, said he was sleeping. But he was dressed.” Tugging on a sleeve, Dalby emphasised, “In his uniform.”

“Then maybe he was lying on his bed in his uniform,” Tabor suggested. “It’s not a crime, is it?”

“I just thought, maybe you could try to talk to him,” Dalby said pointedly, eyeing Tabor directly again now.

Tabor’s reply was an abrupt, “Why me?”, which he punctuated with a long gulp of his beer.

Dalby straightened, folding his hands in front of him. “Because I’m wondering if whatever Gerron saw, it was something that happened during the Occupation. He wasn’t in the Maquis long enough to see any real action. I figure if he’s upset by re-living some memory, it was likely something from back on Bajor.” With an admirable amount of patience, Dalby waited for Tabor’s response.

It was a longer while coming this time. When Tabor finally did answer, it began with a gentle sigh, intensifying from there. “Look, if Gerron’s upset and he doesn’t want to talk about it, I’m not going to go knocking at his door, trying to pry it out of him. We don’t all have to share whatever it was that we saw yesterday if we don’t want to, and, besides, yesterday could be nothing to do with it. The kid’s moody. He always has been.”

His face flushing, Dalby opened his mouth to retort, then appeared to think better of it, instead looking to Jor in annoyance. She shrugged at him, raising her palms to let him know that, aside from making careful observation, she was staying out of it.

After sucking in a deep, calming breath, Dalby persisted. “I just thought that … if you were to let him know that you’re willing to listen if he wants to talk, then –”

“I hardly know the kid,” Tabor interrupted. “Let’s just leave him be. If it turns out he’s too ill for duty then Chakotay will send him to the Doctor anyway. Leave it to them.”

Then, good intentions left unaided, Dalby shoved his chair backwards to screech along the floor, rising to his feet, fuming under his breath, “Thanks a lot.” And, with another look of confusion in Jor’s direction – which she reflected back at him in equal measure – Dalby turned on his heel and marched off towards the exit.

“What was that all about?” Jor hissed in tandem with the holodeck doors, conscious of heads turning and what muted conversation there’d been in the background diminishing to an even softer hush.

Taking a sip of his beer, Tabor seemed to steady himself. His features, which had hardened, relaxed back into apathy. He stared off over her head for a long moment, before looking her in the eye. “I’m sorry,” he murmured.

“It’s not me you need to apologise to, is it?” she replied shortly. “Dalby’s right. If Gerron’s upset, you’re a natural choice to try to get through to him. What you just said … that wasn’t very reasonable. It wasn’t like you.”

“Dalby’s had more luck than me getting through to Gerron in the past,” Tabor countered.

“But Dalby’s not exactly the most sensitive guy, is he? You’re easier to talk to.” Unable to restrain the urge, she added a muttered, “usually at least,” feeling a little guilty then as Tabor flinched at that.

“I don’t like the way these experiences … these personal matters, are getting around the ship,” he said, waving a hand through the air. “They’re not stories to be traded around like … campfire tales.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Campfire tales?”

“Is that not the right human analogy?”

Shaking her head, she tried to get the conversation back on point. “That’s no reason not to speak to Gerron. You’d keep in confidence anything he tells you – if he’ll tell you anything. I don’t understand what your problem is.”

Tabor tensed again. “I’m not looking to adopt another kid brother.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jor let the question hang, even after he’d shrugged his non-answer. And then the pieces started to come together. “Is this about Nelson? Your hallucinations yesterday, is that who you saw?” Tabor had been out of sorts before Dalby had come along and his mood had deteriorated further.

Swallowing hard, Tabor took a deep breath and nodded. “Yes. I saw Nelson,” he acknowledged, “and the others. The six of them that we left behind.”

Instinctively, Jor reached across the table to lay a hand on one of his, both of which were curled tightly around his glass now. But he chose that moment to lift the glass to his lips and drink slowly, leaving her arm stretched out uselessly along the table top. She withdrew it, crossed it over her chest with her other arm. “But, you don’t want to talk about it?” she queried, hurt by the brush off, but trying to dismiss it.

“Not especially,” he said, setting down his glass with a thump. “There’s nothing much to tell anyway. I saw Marva IV. The day we parted from the six of them. You were there. You know what happened.”

“Then you saw it exactly as it happened? There weren’t any … distortions?”

Shrugging, Tabor stole a look at her face, before leaning back in his chair and letting his gaze wander out aimlessly across the room. “I saw things as _I_ remember them. We loaded their shuttle with supplies, said our goodbyes to them, went our separate ways and expected to link up in two weeks. What else is there?”

There was something he wasn’t willing to tell her, she could see it in his eyes – when they weren’t evading her. The most likely explanation was that he simply didn’t want to upset her when she was already feeling fragile. Of the two of them, she’d been the one most concerned about how the others would fare, the six of them left behind having to link up with a new Maquis cell, find a new ship or a new base to operate from. Going into battle with unfamiliar comrades could often be more dangerous than engaging the enemy as part of a cohesive, well-rehearsed unit. Hopefully, the six of them would be able to stick together and reduce that risk as they got to know the quirks and particular tactics of their new cell.

“I know it’s upsetting now, to think about how the war might be going back home – the not knowing,” Jor said calmly. “But, when we first came on board _Voyager_ , you were the one reassuring me. Remember what you told me then? They’ll be all right.”

“Maybe _you_ should speak to Gerron.”

Something in his tone unsettled her further. There was an undercurrent that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Something unpleasant. “Me?” she queried.

He nodded. “After the way you looked out for Nelson.”

“We both looked out for him.”

“But he talked to you more than me,” Tabor insisted, a flash of … something darkening his eyes. “You and he were close.”

“No closer than you and he were,” she argued, quick to amend her slip into the past tense with an emphatic “ _Are_.” For some reason she often seemed to make that verbal blunder. It was something she needed to pay more attention towards preventing. The others weren’t dead. They were just on the other side of the Galaxy. Deciding to make one more effort on Dalby’s behalf, Jor urged, “Gerron … it’s just a quick word, that’s all anyone’s asking from you.”

As Tabor thought on that, his gaze darted downwards from her face, and he finally noticed that Jor’s glass was empty. He pointed to it and offered an apology for his lapse.

“Forget it,” she said, giving in to a yawn. “It’s getting late, anyway.” Maybe his attitude was simply a result of tiredness. She was worn out herself, and he’d said he’d not slept much the previous night. Perhaps she should have waited a couple of days before unburdening herself on him. And it was unfortunate timing on Dalby’s part, though he’d raised a reasonable request, one which Jor wouldn’t have imagined Tabor to deny.  

“Yeah, I think I’ll turn in for the night,” he said, her yawn drawing a matching one from him. “Read for a bit, maybe, to relax. You don’t mind, do you?”

Jor shook her head. “No. If that’s what you feel is best.”

“I do.”

“Then I’ll turn in too.”

They rose together. Jor wished their remaining crewmates a good night as she passed their tables, waving to those on the far side of the room. Tabor largely failed to observe any pleasantries as they headed out to the turbolift. Mistaking which holodeck they’d been in, he led them off in the wrong direction until she pulled on his arm to correct him.

“What are you reading?” Jor asked, pleased when that topic at least brought a smile to Tabor’s lips, and his entire face seemed to brighten, the lines of tension melting away.

“It’s an ancient Earth novel,” he told her. “It’s called _The War of the Worlds_.”

Frowning at the title, which she’d never heard of but which gave the impression of not being particularly escapist reading for a war veteran, Jor let him enlighten her on it as they entered the lift and called for their respective decks.

“You humans had some interesting ideas of what the future would be like, back in those old days,” Tabor teased. “Especially with regards to space travel and alien life.”

“That’s what the book is about?”

“Aliens from Mars attacking Earth,” Tabor said. His face fell a little. “It is quite a chilling story actually. But fascinating. Paris put me onto it.”

Jor’s eyebrows shot up. “You’re taking reading suggestions from Tom Paris?”

“We got to talking about books during that scouting mission I went on with him and Neelix. I was telling them both how much I was enjoying having access to such an extensive library – so much choice of reading material on hand. From every Federation culture as well as Klingon literature, the Bajoran classics. And it’s all free. Just there for us to explore.”

“I wouldn’t have taken Paris to be much of a reader. Books seem a bit sedate for his type.”

“His type?”

Shrugging her shoulders, Jor found herself struggling to articulate what she was thinking. Maybe her attitude towards the pilot was a little unfair. Paris had never been anything less than helpful and polite to her personally. “Just … he seems the sort to want action. Excitement.”

The lift doors opened at deck four. Jor didn’t step out, instead calling for the lift to halt there for a moment while they finished their conversation.

“Books can be exciting,” Tabor said, growing more animated than Jor had seen him all evening except for when he’d become irritated with Dalby. “They’re not immersive to all the senses like a holonovel, but the written word can be just as powerful. More so, I think. It’s all up to your imagination. There’s a freedom to travel through the story at more of your own pace, to fill in the blanks… Am I making sense?”      

She nodded. “But reading’s kind of lonely.” Failing to remember the last time she’d read anything that wasn’t a technical manual or a news report, her mind ran back to the _Val Jean_. Any downtime she’d spent on that ship had been in the company of others: talking, eating, playing cards. Sahreen had often sat on his own reading from a PADD. Suder, too. But the last time she’d read a work of fiction herself must have been back in school, she decided.

Tabor shrugged. “Sometimes it’s good to get away from other people for a little while.” Seeing her eyes widen, he reached out a tentative hand, made a brief, light contact with her elbow. “No offense,” he stressed, withdrawing his hand to his side. “It’s nothing personal. I didn’t mean…”

“Yeah. I know,” she said, accepting his words easily. Solitude had its place. She stepped out into the empty corridor, saying, “I’ll let you go,” before wishing him good night with a smile.

But instead of directing the lift to continue on its journey, he stepped to the threshold and called to her back. “In the morning, I’ll comm Gerron.”

Spinning around, she knew that surprise would be blatant on her face. “You will?”

Tabor nodded, pausing for a moment before adding, “And I’ll clear things up with Dalby.”

“I think he’d appreciate that,” she said, gladdened by that herself.

“And, you and I … we’re good?”

She could never stay irritated with Tabor for long. “Yes,” she stated. “We’re good.”

 


	5. Chapter 5

_Maneouvers_

“So, tell me about that mission you went on in the Maquis.” Frank Darwin’s fascination practically oozed out of him. Jor had always found her fellow engineer to be a likeable character, but, if he were talking about what she thought he was, then it was going to rile Tabor up. And, if that happened, however undeservedly, Darwin was going to get on Jor’s bad side.

“We went on a lot of missions,” she said patiently, feigning ignorance in the hope that something else would crop up to change this subject. Now would be a good time for Neelix to interrupt the flow of conversation by bringing one of his culinary delights over for them to sample. Or for one of Tuvok’s battle drills. Or Henley to show up with some ridiculous gossip.

“The one where you disabled the computer core on the Cardassian frigate orbiting Bajor,” Darwin pressed as if it were blatantly obvious.

It was really. Darwin had been down in the cargo bay with Jor and Tabor working to repair the breach caused by the Kazon shuttle when Chell had dropped by. Chell’s big mouth had conveyed the news that B’Elanna was working on modifying a coil scanner à la ‘Seska and the Bajor mission’.

Darwin didn’t know Jor well enough that he’d be likely to pick up on any non-verbal cues she might offer telling him this was not a good topic to hit on. Not here, in present company. Nevertheless, she tried to warn him off, flashing him a hard stare before glancing quickly to Tabor on her other side. Tabor gave no indication that he was even listening, studying the PADD that he’d picked up with his left hand from the table and sipping from the mug of tea that he held in his right.

But Darwin only frowned. “What? You don’t want to tell me because I’m Starfleet?” he said, sounding more hurt than indignant.

“No, it’s not that, Frank,” Jor said, wondering briefly how he’d respond to a kick in the shins under the table.

“Seska was the one who modified the antiproton beam,” Tabor broke in without looking up from his reading. “We were just along for the ride.”

The clipped tone in which Tabor delivered his dismissive statement did seem to curb Darwin’s enthusiasm. “Oh, all right,” Darwin said deferentially. Tabor was his superior officer, after all, and Darwin had been one of the first among the Starfleet crewmen to show that he would treat those Maquis granted a provisional officer’s rank with the same respect as he did the Academy graduates.

Mouthing a “sorry” at Jor, Darwin returned his full attention to his meal. A moment later, Tabor left his seat claiming he needed a quick word with Ayala on the far side of the room. He took his tea with him but left the PADD on the table without thumbing it off. Jor peered at the screen. It was blank.

“I was just interested to know the technicalities of how you managed to pull it off,” Darwin said once Tabor was out of earshot. “I didn’t mean to upset anyone.”

“Come on, you know Seska’s a sensitive subject,” Jor reminded him, wondering how in the galaxy Tabor could be helped to get past the ‘Seska issue’. “Besides, I don’t actually know all of the details.”

Nodding silently, Darwin proceeded to make quick work of his dinner, and soon Jor found herself alone at the table.

Tabor had suspected that Seska would show her face again before too long. The face that she had, in fact, shown the bridge officers three days ago had been reverting back to its original Cardassian appearance. Word of that had spread through engineering once B’Elanna had heard the details of the Kazon transmission from Chakotay. Jor found some relief in the fact that Seska no longer looked like a Bajoran. At least she now looked more like the snake that she was.

When Jor had emphasised that to Tabor, hoping that he might find some comfort in it to alleviate his black mood at Seska’s reappearance, he’d only shrugged, saying that whatever face Seska wore didn’t change what had happened. Which was true, but not a sentiment that showed Tabor was making progress in getting over Seska’s treachery – progress in coming to terms with how he personally had been deceived by her.

And now, ironically, _Voyager_ would be using a Maquis trick – learned from Seska – in order to get back the technology stolen by the Kazon.

The disabling of that Cardassian frigate at Bajor had been one of the _Val Jean_ ’s most successful missions, the Maquis taking zero losses and incurring no injuries during the brief skirmish. Every detail of the plan had been accomplished without a hitch. Neither Jor nor Tabor had learned the full purpose of that mission. They hadn’t needed to know, had just needed to be there in the engine room with B’Elanna, making sure that the ship would do whatever Chakotay asked of it. Speculation was that that attack was a trial run for one on a more heavily defended target – maybe a cruiser or a destroyer. And, knowing what they did now, perhaps an attack on that future target would have led the _Val Jean_ – or any other Maquis ship that employed the tactic – into a Cardassian trap. Not for the first time Jor burned with curiosity to know just what intel Seska had been feeding back to her masters.

“Frank’s gone?” Tabor asked, rather unnecessarily, on his return to Jor’s side.

“Probably on his way to sickbay for an antacid,” she returned dryly.

Sliding into his seat, Tabor took a moment to figure that out, then grimaced. “Sorry. I guess I should have stuck around rather than leave you in an awkward position. I’ll square things with him later if needs be. But I _did_ need to speak to Ayala.”

Jor heaved a sigh, deciding how best to proceed before leaning in closer to say a soft and calculated, “Darwin’s attitude – he’s not the only one from Starfleet that’s shown that kind of interest in Maquis operations as if it was … exciting to be fighting like we were.”

“I suppose I can see how it might seem that way to someone unaware of the reality of the war,” Tabor said, after a little reflection. “They know about the hit-and-run strikes we carried out – those were the most heavily publicised in the Federation. But they don’t understand how things were in between, especially those missions planetside. Like the long stakeouts. And the conditions in the displacement camps or that we found when we went to aid colonists after Cardassian attacks. There was certainly nothing exciting about those missions. No … adrenaline rushing.”  

Raising an elbow onto the table, Jor propped up her chin in her hand, weighing his words. “But if we tell them how things were… I still find the idea of letting them know too much about Maquis tactics – or even just how we lived – a little disconcerting. No matter how much we’re one crew out here – and we are, I really feel that – but, it’s…”

“Like we’d be compromising Maquis operations back home if _Voyager_ ever gets in contact with Starfleet?” Tabor murmured back.

“Maybe. If it came down to it, Janeway would hand over any intelligence that Starfleet asked for, wouldn’t she? The Maquis in the Alpha Quadrant aren’t a part of her crew. They’re still Starfleet’s enemies. I have to keep reminding myself that the freedoms she’s granted to us are because she needs us to run the ship and she can’t accommodate thirty prisoners.”

Leaning backwards from her, Tabor turned his head to look around the mess hall. Jor’s gaze naturally followed his. Aside from their own table, not one other didn’t host a mixed Starfleet and Maquis contingent. She knew that’s what he’d noticed too when their eyes met again.

“I still can’t quite figure her out,” Tabor said, looking away to the long windows and the star trails beyond that showed _Voyager_ was still in pursuit of the Nistrim ship at warp.

“Janeway?”

“Yes. I wonder just how far she would go to reclaim the stolen transporter module. If it came to losing members of her crew in the attempt, how many would be too many for her?”

“She told Neelix that the technology had to be reclaimed no matter how dangerous it would be.”

“But surely, there’s a limit? Think about it: there’s a minimum number of skilled personnel that this ship needs in order to operate under peaceful conditions, let alone in battle. So, forget transporter components – if we were weakened enough, Seska and that Maj she’s screwing could win _Voyager_ itself.”

Taken aback by his coarse language – Tabor had rarely resorted to vulgarity, even in the many high-stress situations when he’d lost his temper – she needed a moment to formulate a response. “But it won’t come to that,” she said, further disorientated when Tabor’s lips curled into a slight smile. “What’s funny?”

The smile promptly vanished. “It’s not funny at all really,” he said, nudging the PADD that sat in front of him on the table. “But, this latest book I’ve been reading is about a naval captain who’s obsessed with hunting for a large sea creature. Because of the lengths he goes to, his ship eventually sinks and all the crew except for one man die.”

Jor couldn’t help but laugh, as much as it wasn’t funny at all, just like he’d told her. “Another one of Paris’s suggestions?” she queried, unsurprised when Tabor nodded in reply. “I think you need to find some more light-hearted books to read,” she said.  

He nodded again. “Maybe. It was hard going. It might have been easier if I’d read the Bajoran translation. But, in any case, it made me think – how well-balanced mentally is our Starfleet captain?”

“They go through all kinds of psych tests just to get into the Academy, let alone before rising through the ranks to captain a ship.” Jor hadn’t given the Captain’s mental wellbeing too much thought, trusting that with Chakotay and Tuvok by her side, Janeway had sound advisors to lean upon. Then again, Chakotay had made some pretty lousy decisions in the past, and Tuvok’s logical suggestions might not always serve a non-Vulcan crew well. “I’ll say one thing though,” she added casually. “It’s a shame _Voyager_ doesn’t have a ship’s counsellor. Neelix does his best, but he’s no expert.”

“Yes. I think a professional counsellor would have a very long queue outside his or her door. So far from home, many people could use some of that kind of help.”

“Hmm.”

Narrowing his eyes as he caught on to her real purpose in bringing that up, Tabor wagged a finger in the air between them. “No. Not me.”

“Really?”

With that, his face twisted into a scowl and his eyes hardened, telling Jor that her point had hit its target. There was no triumph in it for her though. Seeing him like this only made her stomach churn.

“I’m well within my rights to be angry with Seska,” Tabor said coldly. “Don’t tell me you’re not feeling the same whenever her name is mentioned.” He lowered his hand, crossing his arms over his chest. “That’s not even the bitch’s name, is it? She’s got some ugly Cardassian name like … Grotta or Mukbar. I wonder if Janeway’s asked her what it really is. Not that the answer wouldn’t be just another lie.”

Leaving the silence hang for a moment to ensure that his rant was finished, Jor took a breath then pressed her point further. To the maximum. “Of course Seska makes me angry. But I don’t get like _that_. Listen to yourself. You have to try to let some of that hatred go. It’s so bad for you.”

Tabor blanched. “I’ll let it go when I know she’s no longer a threat to us. When she’s got what she deserves.”

“And how will you know when that is?”

“When she’s dead.”

His last words had been spat loudly enough that Sam Wildman and Kes had turned their heads in concern from the next table over. Neelix had reappeared in the galley after a noticeable absence and looked poised to head over and check that everything was all right. He fussed about with a plate of pastries on the counter before sidling out into the seating area, offering them around to each table, leaving Jor and Tabor until last.

“Ensign Tabor, I was wondering if you might be able to help me with something,” Neelix said, setting down the now half-empty plate onto the table.

“What?” Tabor said coolly.

Shooting a look at Jor before his scrutiny shifted back to Tabor, Neelix explained, “I’m having a problem with the oven, or, more specifically, the light inside has stopped working, so I can’t peek in through the door to see how my tarts are rising.”

“You want me to change a light bulb?”

At Tabor’s scornful tone, a flicker of a frown crossed the Talaxian’s features, but he rallied to recover his cheerful disposition. “Well, no, I’ve tried that myself and it didn’t fix the issue, so I was looking around here to see who might have the engineering skills to diagnose the problem for me, and, well, I’ve decided that you’re the best man for the job. Would you mind?”

Tabor had no polite recourse but to oblige, whether or not – like Jor – he believed that Neelix’s request was a ploy to get him alone for a ‘morale-boosting chat’. After a moment, Tabor’s taut shoulders dropped, his hard glare softened, and he nodded. “I’ll come and take a look,” he said, giving Jor an apologetic glance as he rose to leave.

Silently, she wished Neelix luck.

 

* * *

 

_Alliances_

“Chakotay wants me to go with him when he packs up Kurt’s stuff tomorrow.”

Tabor felt keenly the same sorrow that was evident on B’Elanna’s face as she spoke – on all their faces, the five of them sat around in Hogan’s quarters. B’Elanna and Jor were perched on either side of Hogan on the sofa. Ayala and Tabor sat in front of them on the floor. When Neelix had heard them arranging to gather together he’d offered to join them. Jor had tactfully put him off, suggesting that, as morale officer, it might be best to make himself available in the mess hall or Sandrine’s for those distressed by Bendera’s death who didn’t have such close friends to commiserate with. Despite the Maquis-Starfleet integration that had continued to proceed to a level far beyond Tabor’s earlier imaginings, this small gathering was definitely a Maquis affair.

Hogan was taking Bendera’s death – a few days ago now – the hardest. He and Bendera had been firm friends, despite their very different family backgrounds and personalities. Through the – very Starfleet – funeral service for Bendera earlier that day, Hogan had (mostly) kept his cool, but now that he was in his own quarters, off duty, and, unlike the rest of them, out of uniform, he’d vented his anger and frustrations with Janeway and the Prime Directive to an audience that would hear him out and with no risk of him getting disciplined for insubordination. B’Elanna was noticeably quiet: not coming to the Captain’s defence, yet definitely reluctant to show too much encouragement for Hogan’s rant.  

“I could ask him if you could do it instead of me, if you like,” B’Elanna said to Hogan. “Janeway’s already deviated from the regulations.” That raised Hogan’s eyebrows. B’Elanna went on to explain, “It’s supposed to be the Captain and the deceased’s Department Head that deal with the belongings, but Chakotay wanted to do it himself and she agreed that would be best.”

“No. Thanks,” Hogan replied with a shake of his head, telling her, “but when you put Kurt’s things into storage, you should take a copy of a letter he left with me for safekeeping. It’s to be given to his parents in the event of his death. Assuming we ever get home – or at least make contact with Starfleet.”

“His parents could be long dead before we get back,” Ayala chimed in bitterly. “From old age even if the Cardies don’t get them first.”

B’Elanna shrugged, folding her arms tightly across her chest. “Well, the regulations say that if a crewmember dies and hasn’t left instructions to the contrary, their stuff gets sealed up for their family. If not his parents, then whoever else is left when we get home.” She sighed. “I hate the thought of going through his things. I know he’s gone, and someone has to, but it seems like prying.”

“I’ve done it a few times. In the Maquis and before,” Tabor said, getting to his feet to flex his left knee. He’d twisted it earlier climbing out of a Jefferies tube whilst taking part in the ongoing repairs to deck four. Not relishing the thought of a visit to sickbay, he was hoping that it would sort itself out. “It’s never a pleasant task,” he continued, “but,” and he looked to B’Elanna, “like you say, someone has to do it. And you’ll do it with respect. Kurt wouldn’t mind it being you.”

Back on Bajor, the disposal of the newly deceased’s possessions had sometimes turned into a frenzied ‘grab whatever you can get’. Tabor could recall examples of where a dead person’s home – whether a permanent structure or a tent in a camp – had been looted before the body was even cold. It hadn’t happened much when there’d been surviving family members or friends, but, thanks to the nature of the Occupation, there’d been plenty of Bajorans who’d died alone, far from their loved ones. Once, a dead man had been stripped of the very clothes he was wearing.  

“How much stuff did he have anyway?” Jor asked quietly. “None of us came on board with anything but the clothes on our backs and maybe a phaser or whatever we were carrying when we were transported off the _Val Jean_. And with replicator rationing in place, he can’t have accumulated much.”

“He’d just replicated some boxing gloves with rations he’d saved up,” Hogan said. “He and Chakotay were going to start training on the holodeck.”

“I’d have liked to have seen that,” said Ayala. “Given all the fights he organised on the _Val Jean_ , it was about time he stepped up into the ring himself.”

Tabor couldn’t help but smile at that. “That would’ve been some match. Kurt would have won on his reflexes.”

“But Chakotay’s got the more powerful punch,” noted Jor. “At least according to Dalby.”

“Did Kurt ever punch Dalby?” Hogan asked with surprise. “He never told me about that.”

Frowning, Jor exchanged a brief look with Tabor. Deciding quickly that Bendera wouldn’t be too upset at the reveal, Tabor prompted her with a nod. “There was a misunderstanding,” Jor said, breaking into a nervous smile as she gazed around at the three pairs of raised eyebrows. “Over a bipolar torch and an interphasic coil spanner.”

Ayala snorted. “On _Voyager_?”

“Yes, but quite a few months back,” Jor said quickly. “Before Dalby had his Starfleet field training.”

“And?” B’Elanna demanded, uncrossing her arms to straighten her posture.

“Do you want to tell them?” Jor asked Tabor, a note of pleading in her voice.

Despite the fact that he’d do almost anything for her, Tabor hadn’t been present in person when the bizarre incident had occurred. What he’d overheard through the open comm line between Jefferies tube thirty two and main engineering had made his hair stand on end, but he’d not caught the full prelude to the punch as had Jor who’d been present in person. If anyone was to tell the tale, it should be her. Or there was another option… “Maybe you should ask Dalby,” Tabor said to the three expectant listeners, gaining him a very appreciative smile from Jor and dissatisfied looks from Hogan and Ayala. Not to mention the unimpressed glare that B’Elanna fired his way, which would have scared him half to death if he hadn’t known her so well. Contrary to some people’s opinions, Lieutenant Torres could take a joke.

“I think Kurt would find the amusement in that,” Jor said, nodding.

“He did have a fine sense of humour,” Tabor agreed, lowering himself to sit on the floor once again.

Ayala got up then, wandering over to the window to stare into space. Hogan extended the use of his replicator to all, but with rations in short supply, none of the group took up the offer.

“I’m not sure I agree with what they did, not taking him with us,” Ayala said, turning back to face the others. “Sending him out in a torpedo casing instead of putting his body in stasis so he could be buried back home.”

“I don’t know about that, Mike,” Hogan said, straightening in his seat. “I can’t say I liked how Starfleet the funeral was, the flags and whistles, but going back to the point that it could be seventy years before we get home, who’d be around then to bury him?”

“Not to mention that his home colony was in Cardassian hands last we heard,” B’Elanna pointed out.

“True,” Ayala conceded. “I suppose it’s because it’s not the Maquis way.”

“No,” B’Elanna said, with a roll of her eyes. “We never had any torpedo casings to spare.”

Tabor saw Jor’s lips turn up in reaction to that. Though she soon suppressed the smile from her mouth, it remained in her eyes as she met his gaze. It was quite funny in a blackly humorous way, the fact that Starfleet would use a valuable weapons component for the disposal of a corpse, especially when an Intrepid-class ship didn’t carry as standard the materials to fabricate the torpedo casings and had to mine planetary raw materials for the process. A typical Maquis burial in the DMZ would entail a simple wooden coffin at best. At other times, the dead had been buried merely in the clothes they’d been wearing when they died or a blanket. Where practicable, the fallen had been returned to their families, but as the Cardassians had intruded further into the DMZ, forcing more colonists from their homes and back to Federation worlds, the Maquis had often found their combat operations to be taking place at a great distance from those on whose behalf they were fighting.

“He’d have found that amusing too,” Tabor said, to a ripple of agreement from the others.

“It was just so sudden,” B’Elanna broke in. “One minute he was there, the next he’s lying on the floor and that’s it. Gone.”

“At least we know he didn’t suffer,” said Jor. “He lost consciousness right away. It’s not much of a comfort, but isn’t it better than the alternative?”

B’Elanna bit her lip, her eyes defocusing for a moment, before, with a slight shake of her head, she added, “But to die like that, with no preparation, no warning…”

“No time to say goodbye,” Ayala finished, staring out of the window once more.  

Hogan nodded. “All the scrapes he got me out of, I thanked him at the time, but … I just hope he knew how grateful I was, you know?”

“Me too,” said B’Elanna.

Jor laid a hand on Hogan’s shoulder, patting it gently. “He did. I’m sure of it.”

In the Maquis they’d lost people suddenly before: to Cardassian mines and snipers, from accidents with explosives, even a couple of suicides. And the means of Bendera’s demise was hardly unheard of; many of the Starfleet officers killed in the crossing to the Delta Quadrant had died as the result of consoles exploding nearby: the transporter chief, the nurse, the original Chief Engineer. But Tabor knew that if he had the choice, he’d rather have some time between the sealing of his fate and his last breath. There were things he’d want to say if he knew his death were imminent. It was a horrible thought, dying with those things unsaid, with feelings unexpressed. But then, living with them out in the open could screw up the most valued friendship that he had. That he’d ever had. It was a problem that he’d wrestled with for a while now. Though wrestling was a poor analogy given that it implied he actually faced up to the issue rather than what he really did: which was to give it a quick mental glance from time to time when something happened to direct his attention to it.

Something as disconcerting as an alien-induced hallucination. Or as innocuous as Jor’s comforting hand on Hogan’s shoulder.

“He’d want us to focus on all the good times we had, wouldn’t he?” Tabor said, as much in an attempt to distract himself as to contribute something useful to the conversation, knowing that he’d feel guilty about that later when he did his usual end-of-the-day reflecting.

Jor chuckled. “Like the time he caught Henley and that Kobliad grain merchant behind those barrels of rolled oats in the cargo bay.”

“I’ve never eaten oatmeal since,” Hogan said, pulling a face.

“Neither has Henley,” Ayala quipped, moving back to join the group.

“And what happened with that girl he used to hook up with whenever we stopped off at the Volnar colony?” B’Elanna asked. “The last couple times we went he didn’t mention seeing her.”

“The Andorian with the lazy antennae?”

“No. She was human. Part human, at least. Brown hair. Tall.”

“Oh, you mean … what was her name? The one … he said she used to…”

“Yeah.

“And she had all the cats?”

“Yes. That one.”

“Same thing that happened with the Ktarian woman on Nivoch.”

“With the…?”

“Right.”

“Which was what?” Tabor demanded, not clued in to the subtext in what B’Elanna, Hogan and Ayala were bouncing off each other. He looked to Jor who’d not contributed to the exchange. She seemed as confused as he was, her hand still absently patting Hogan’s shoulder as she looked in turn from one face to another.

B’Elanna snorted. “You never heard about the Ktarian?”

“Should I have?”

Ayala reached over to clap Tabor on the back. “Best you haven’t. It could be too much for your delicate Bajoran sensibilities.”

“I’ll trade you for the Dalby story?” B’Elanna offered, with a smirk.

Tabor shook his head, paying no heed to the slur on his heritage. The others did sometimes say things that made him blush. “I think I can live in ignorance.”

“And I’ll ask Henley tomorrow,” said Jor.

“You know another funny story…”

The reminiscing went on for a while longer, then B’Elanna left to get back to engineering. She was supposed to be off duty, but, for her more than any of them, that term was a very loose definition. Ayala stayed ten minutes longer, moving to fill the spot B’Elanna had vacated on the sofa, quietly recounting some more of the good times he’d shared with Bendera, and raising further laughs with his anecdotes. And then Tuvok called for all senior security personnel to report to the armoury and Ayala hurried away.

In all that time, Jor’s hand hadn’t strayed from Hogan’s shoulder.

“We should go now,” Tabor told her, before turning to Hogan, “You look like you could use some sleep.”

“I’d be glad of the company for a little longer,” Hogan replied.

“Of course,” said Jor, finally lifting her hand from Hogan’s shoulder as Tabor moved to the sofa.

Tabor waited there with her, fighting to keep his own eyes open and maintain his focus on the conversation, until – yawning herself – Jor finally declared it was time to call it a night.

He walked her to her quarters, took the turbolift down to his own quarters on deck nine, and, after downing a strong black coffee to prop up his heavy-lidded eyes, he made a start on a letter.

 


	6. Chapter 6

_Threshold to Meld_

“This is nice. Doing something … normal.”

She smiled at his smile. And his words, voicing her exact thoughts at that moment. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

It had been over two years, in fact, not counting the little snippets of normality that one could find even during a paramilitary campaign or on a starship seventy thousand light years from home - whatever ‘home’ meant anymore. Over two years since she and Tabor had gone on a long hike together purely for pleasure. And, unlike herself, Tabor had been starved of what many would consider a ‘normal’ life for most of his years before that short window of peaceful existence on Salva IV. At least for the first twenty or so years of her life, she’d had the opportunity to do things like this with friends. With family. Tabor could count on two hands the months during which he’d had a comfortable home, a job that wasn’t in a forced labour camp, and a shot at establishing a life for himself beyond the fear of occupied Bajor and the squalor of the displacement camps he’d lived in while in exile.

“This is so much better than the holodeck,” Tabor said. “I know how realistic those programs are, especially the newer ones, but there’s just something about real fresh air that can’t be simulated.”

“Absolutely. I’m glad we chose to come out here instead of taking that trip with Hogan and Doyle to the lava fields.”

And the air was fresh, the breeze brisk but not biting. A faint tang of agriculture wafted in when the wind whirled from a certain direction. Not strong enough to taint the pleasantness, but plenty enough to remind Jor of home. She’d never paid much notice to the rustic smells of hay and manure back when she was growing up. But, having spent so much of the last two years in space, away from such triggers, the sense of déjà vu that she’d felt coming out here to the outskirts of this Zarelian city was powerful. She’d pushed those thoughts to one side for the time being, wanting to enjoy these next few hours without distraction. Just as she always did when memories of home intruded, she’d promise herself to examine them at another time.

_Voyager_ had arrived in system yesterday. The Zarelians inhabited an enclave of friendly space between that dominated by the Kazon sects. Having always stayed out of any regional politics, the Zarelians yet welcomed any visitors that came in peace. Despite boasting extensive military installations, their technology was heavily geared to the defensive. They’d protect their own space down to the last ship, but that was as far as their aggressive tendencies went. A ‘cousin of a friend of a friend’ of Neelix had once visited here, and the Talaxian had advised the Captain that this would be a good place to stop and take respite. _Voyager_ was practically in the neighbourhood anyway since the search for Janeway, Paris and the _Cochrane_ had taken the ship three days off her original course.

And respite was sorely needed for all after the complete mess of the conference with the Kazon and the Trabe and the ‘excitement’ of Paris’s trans-warp flight and its aftermath.

The trail underfoot was well-travelled, a little muddy in places with small puddles evidence of recent rain. Not that there was a single cloud in the deep blue sky this morning.

Henley and Darwin had rushed on in front, impatient to see the feted lake that this path circumnavigated over its last few kilometres. Jor might have thought Henley was seeking to add Darwin to her list of ‘conquests’ if she didn’t know better. Henley had never shown any interest in admiring scenery in the past. Darwin, on the other hand, did have a motive beyond fresh air and exercise for coming along on this jaunt.

“Hey, get over here would you two?” Henley called from the brow of the incline ahead.

Jor exchanged a look with Tabor, both naturally quickening their stride with slight alarm, before slackening their pace again when Henley elaborated in another yell, “Frank wants to take some holo-images.” This time, Henley tacked a “please” onto the end.

“Why does he need us?” Tabor wondered aloud.

“Maybe he wants one of us to operate the camera,” Jor said hopefully. She’d always hated having her image recorded. Just the sight of Darwin at his new hobby had caused her to keep her distance. Not that that would make any difference if he pointed the camera her way. The thing had about a thousand times zoom function.

Alas, Frank wanted a group picture. “I’m keeping a journal,” he explained, when she and Tabor had caught up. “Not just a regular personal log, but a much more detailed account of _Voyager_ ’s journey. From the perspective of an enlisted crewman such as myself, obviously.”

“Then we should wait for Dalby and Gerron.” Jor proposed. “The more the merrier.”

The two men were following a few minutes behind. Getting the young Bajoran to leave the ship had been quite an accomplishment. Dalby had to take most of the credit for that, though Tabor had played a part in the persuasion as well. The hike had been Darwin’s idea, the route selected from tourist information that the Zarelians had made available to the _Voyager_ crew. He’d tried to round up as many of his fellow engineers as he could for the excursion, but many of the crew had more sedate activities in mind for this shore leave. Dalby had been his first recruit, followed by Jor and Tabor. Henley had overheard them discussing it in the mess hall and signed up, saying she needed to burn off some nervous energy. And, at the last minute, Gerron had joined them.  

The wait for Dalby and Gerron gave the rest of them a chance to appreciate their first glimpse of the lake that the Zarelians were so proud of.

The slope down the other side from that which they had just ascended was gentler. It lead across a meadow of short grass to the lake, the dirt trail winding down to the water’s edge and then following the shoreline until it passed into a wooded area that hugged the shore. Beyond the lake lay gently rising farmland, fields of colours from deep earthy reds to vivid greens to pale yellows demarking the different crops that were grown there. A flock of waterfowl flew low overhead, circling and finally landing in the shallows.

“I’d like to get that in behind the six of us,” said Darwin, sweeping his hand through the air to indicate the pleasing vista ahead.

“How will you get yourself in the picture?” Tabor queried, looking around, presumably for something of a suitable height upon which Darwin might set the camera. Perhaps Jor might get out of the shot after all by volunteering herself. But Darwin proceeded to pull out a thin metal cylinder from his backpack, unfolding and extending it to reveal a three-legged stand.

“Made this myself from a contaminated batch of duranium,” Darwin announced with a beaming grin. “Saved me using weeks of replicator rations. Torres was just going to recycle it, so she let me have a few kilograms.”

“And what about the holocamera? Don’t say you built that too.”

“Borrowed – with permission – from the geology lab.”

Dalby and Gerron appeared at that moment, the younger man’s habitually dour expression actually brightening when he saw the contraption Darwin had wrought. Tabor made a comment comparing its look to some fictional fighting machine in one of the old novels he’d been reading. No one else got the reference, but Tabor laughed about it anyway. Henley fussed with her hair; unlike the others, she’d declined the gift of one of the traditional wide-brimmed hats that their Zarelian hosts wore to keep the sun off their bald heads. The hats also served to stop one’s hair getting ruffled up in the breeze – even if they did look a little silly. Dalby was able to carry the look off quite well, but, even knowing that her own appearance was likely as amusing, Jor had giggled like a child when Tabor had first donned the stiff straw head-covering. He’d whipped it straight off and swatted at her with it, pretending to be insulted. But practicality won over stylishness, and Tabor decided to wear the hat regardless.

And so they let Darwin usher them into what he deemed a suitable group pose, joking around like they didn’t have a care in the world. And despite her aversion to the camera, Jor found that when Darwin pressed the remote trigger in his hand to take the holo-image, the smile on her face was completely and utterly heartfelt.  

###

A cluster of large, flat-topped rocks between the trail and the shoreline made for a natural stopping point, an ideal spot to grab a drink and to wait for the stragglers to catch up. Henley and Darwin wanted to push on; they were keen to make it back to the city before the Zarelians’ evening mealtime. The generous hosts had promised to provide a ten course feast for as many of _Voyager_ ’s crew as desired to attend, and, if the food laid on was as appetising as the provisions the group had been afforded for their hike, then Henley and Darwin didn’t want to miss a single course. Jor suspected that in Henley’s case, there’d be the added incentive of Pablo Baytart’s presence. The junior conn officer’s shore leave wasn’t due to start until this evening when Tom Paris returned to duty, so the only overlap of off-duty hours Henley would get with Baytart would be at the meal.  

Tabor sent the impatient pair on ahead with the assurance that he and Jor would wait for Dalby and Gerron. Not that there was a need to stay in one group from a safety point of view. They were hardly out in the wilderness or in a combat zone with a need for strength in numbers. And a good thing too because, for his age, Gerron was incredibly unfit. He wouldn’t have lasted ten minutes in a ground engagement with the Cardassians back in the DMZ. In any case, Jor never minded having time with Tabor alone.

Reaching around to pull her backpack off her shoulders, she dropped it to the soft grass underfoot and sat with the relief of taking the weight off her feet for a moment. At least they weren’t blistering. She’d dug her well-worn but robust Maquis boots out of the closet for the occasion, deciding there was no need use replicator rations to procure decent footwear when her Maquis gear was sitting there already.  

“You’re right,” said Tabor, looking thoughtfully towards the retreating forms of Henley and Darwin as they strode off into an archway of trees that shaded the trail ahead. “She has got a lot less annoying. Darwin might make it back to the city with his sanity intact.”

Jor laughed, gratefully accepting the water bottle that he handed to her. The air had started to cool somewhat in the last hour or so as the afternoon sun began to lower in the sky, but it was still hot outside of the shade when the breeze dropped. Maybe this wasn’t such an ideal spot to stop at after all. But they could wait five minutes, and, if Dalby and Gerron failed to appear, then she and Tabor could move on a bit to take shelter. Tabor removed his own pack and lowered himself down beside her. They relaxed in silence for a short while, looking across the water towards the small rise on which Darwin had taken the holo-images earlier in the day. A lively group of Zarelian adolescents and their minders trekked by in the opposite direction to that in which Jor, Tabor and their companions were heading. They’d seen a handful of such native groups during the day, but not as many as they’d have expected given the supposed popularity of the place.

“Do you think it’s all come from that training session with Tuvok?” Tabor asked suddenly, clarifying, “The way Henley’s changed.”

“I think it was a factor,” Jor said, Tabor’s question a reminder of a related issue that she’d been meaning to mention to him when an opportune time arose. “But … I think the relative stability that life on _Voyager_ has provided for people like her has helped too. I know we’re always heading on into the unknown and every other week there’s some new danger to overcome… but it’s not like we were living before, in the Maquis. I think a lot of her attitude was down to thinking that death was right around the corner all the time. The new man every week, the way she just wouldn’t shut up about the most stupid things.”

Tabor nodded. “That makes sense. But still, I’d never have imagined having an intellectual discussion with her comparing the Cardassians and the Trabe.”

“No, that was rather astonishing.”

Taking another drink, Jor worked up to what she needed to say next. Dalby and Gerron would likely be a few more minutes yet. Now was as good time as any to broach it. If Tabor heard about it from another source, he’d think it odd that Jor hadn’t told him herself. But there was something about the subject that made her uneasy.

Capping the water bottle, she settled it between her knees and took a deep, fortifying breath. “Henley asked if I’d go along on a date with her,” she told him, keeping her eyes forwards, fixed with a feigned studiousness on a wading bird that foraged for food in the shallows a stone’s throw away.

She’d expected some exclamation of surprise, a quick reaction – either to the fact that Henley would ask such a thing given that she’d never been the sort to want a chaperone or to the fact it was a date and Jor hadn’t been on a date in all the time that she’d known him. But he said nothing for a long moment, and Jor couldn’t stand not to turn and gauge his expression. Which was of a man extremely, completely baffled.

“I didn’t think she’d changed _that_ much,” he finally uttered, raising a sceptical eyebrow as their gazes met.

“Oh God, no. Not just with her,” Jor quickly made clear. “Not like that. She meant a double date. With her and Baytart. On Saturday night. The Venice program.”

Tabor’s eyebrow lowered into a slight frown as he still failed to understand quite what she was telling him. And no wonder really, given the inarticulate way in which she’d begun. Making a concerted effort to be more coherent, she continued, “Pablo’s asked her out again. And now she’s decided she does actually like him, so she asked if I’d go along and he’d bring a friend and so there’d be four of us. Not really like a proper date at all, but I think she’s worried she’ll give a bad impression and she’ll be less likely to do that if she’s not on her own with him.”

Tabor laughed at that, though it wasn’t quite the same carefree laugh she’d been hearing from him throughout the day. Arching that same eyebrow again, he asked, “Will you go?”

Jor shook her head. “No. I’ve already agreed to cover a shift for Yosa. So, I’m working that night. Henley’s going it alone.”

“Oh.”  

Curious as to whether he’d simply let the subject drop or seek further details, she soon had her answer.

“Would you have gone if you weren’t working?” he asked in a casual tone, bending forwards and busying himself with a bootlace that looked to be quite securely tied already.

“Maybe,” she said honestly. “It might depend on who Pablo wanted to bring along.”

Drawing upright again, Tabor proceeded to fuss with his hat, removing it to run a hand through his hair before he threw her a questioning glance with an incongruous, “I see.”

Feeling it proper to rationalise her answer, she resorted to her drink – or was it his? – again before telling him, “I don’t think I could cope with Rollins, say. Or Bronowski. They’re just too…”

“Tall?”

“No.”

“Exciting?”

She snorted a laugh. “No. Too Starfleet.”

Jor would have seriously considered going if only to do Henley a good turn. Presumably whoever Baytart selected to bring along would just be there as a favour too, rather than with any expectations of romance for himself. It would have been a one-off thing. Then, after that, Henley could just get on with it. Fend for herself. Which she was going to do now anyway.

“People really are starting to pair off, aren’t they?” Tabor said, all seriousness again.

Jor hummed her affirmative answer, unable to decide whether the imminent arrival of Dalby and Gerron filled her with relief or regret.

They stayed there a few more minutes. Gerron had to take off his chafing boots to apply some ointment that the Doctor had given him in case of the eventuality. Jor appreciated again how much of an accomplishment it had been for Dalby and Tabor to get the kid to come along. And how much patience Dalby was showing and how much change that showed in his character. The men began talking about the wildfowl they could see on the lake, Dalby reminiscing about how Meyer and Li Paz had hunted for food in the fetid jungles of Moriya and how access to easy pickings such as these plump gathered birds might have prevented that mission failing as spectacularly as it had when the supplies had run out.

Happy to let the conversation flow without her input, Jor turned her thoughts towards her unusual relationship with Tabor – not that it had ever felt unusual until recently – following the others a step behind instead of maintaining her usual position at Tabor’s elbow.

She’d made it quite clear in the earliest days of her friendship with him that she wasn’t looking for any kind of romantic attachment. Still reeling from the loss of everything she’d ever known – less than three weeks before she and Tabor had first met – she’d just needed a friend, plain and simple. No complications with the potential for heartbreak should things not work out. And that’s what he’d always been to her – a very good friend. In any case, she’d felt no immediate overwhelming physical attraction to him. It had taken some doing to get used to the fact that he was an alien – a ‘non-human’, as she’d soon switched to thinking of him, shaking off the influence of her xenophobic upbringing. Though she’d soon stopped staring at the bridge of his nose, her initial frequent gawking had been a source of great amusement to him. He’d found it incredible that her homeworld had boasted a homogenous population of humans and that, as a result, she’d never seen a non-human before. She’d found the diversity within the small colony on Salva IV equally as remarkable. Although predominantly human, there’d been Bolians, Betazoids, Bajorans and other species. As a colleague and a friend, Tabor had helped her make that initial adjustment, shared her anger with the Cardassians, and that was that.

He’d never made any move to suggest he wasn’t happy with the way things were, had never said anything, though there’d been a few looks that were open to interpretation if she were honest with herself – if she allowed herself to reflect in detail. But the Maquis wasn’t the place for long-term romances to thrive in any case. And she didn’t miss what she’d never had. Things had always been fine – easy – just the way they were.

But, lately, with people pairing off all around them, she had started to think more about the nature of their relationship. Were either of them to become romantically involved with anyone else on the ship, their friendship with each other would inevitably have to give way. They wouldn’t be able to maintain such a close, exclusive bond, spending so much time alone in each other’s company, all hours of the day and night. They would drift apart. Presumably, he realised that too.

Were their relationship to change in that other direction, crossing that line to becoming more than ‘just friends’, there’d be no going back to the comfortable friendship that they enjoyed now if, for whatever reason, they changed their minds and decided that more wasn’t what they wanted.

In truth, there was no one on _Voyager_ that Jor had any desire to spend as much time with or be as close and unguarded with as Tabor. Not with any of the fellow Maquis, nor with any of the Starfleet crew as she got to know them. And she didn’t imagine her feelings changing. But people on _Voyager_ were changing, in all sorts of ways, just like Henley was. Tabor might change. Unlike in the male-dominated Maquis, there were plenty of women on _Voyager_. Just because he’d shown no interest in socialising with any of them as yet, didn’t mean he wouldn’t in the future.

But, a longing to preserve their close and unique friendship wasn’t just cause to press for anything further. There would have to be a more definite romantic interest. She might do well to open her mind to that possibility and see what happened – it wasn’t that she found him _un_ attractive. And perhaps, at some point, he might make his feelings clear one way or the other.

It was still on her mind when the trail led the four of them into the suburbs of the city, the streetlights just beginning to come on as sunset approached.

Directed to the small city’s main square by some locals, they found the reception for the _Voyager_ crew was already in full swing with the Captain, Chakotay, Neelix and Kes seated on the top table among what looked to be the Zarelian high officials. A dozen long tables perpendicular to that one were covered with all sorts of exotic dishes as well as some more familiar offerings. A Zarelian server walked by carrying the largest plateful of raw leola roots that Jor had ever seen. Another dish looked suspiciously like Alfarian hair pasta, but then, thankfully, there were bowls of the peach-like fruits and platters of the tortilla-like bread such as they’d been supplied with earlier for lunch. _Voyager_ crewmen sat interspersed with the Zarelians excepting some of the more reserved types who clustered together in small groups: Celes, Telfer and Chapman. Doyle, Carlson and … Suder.

“Check that out,” Jor murmured into Tabor’s ear.

Dalby was quick to follow suit when Tabor turned his head to where Jor’s eyes were pointed. “Hmm. Not a sight we see very often,” Dalby remarked.

Suder’s presence at any type of social gathering was surprising, but at a large festive event such as this even more so. Not that he was participating in any way other than by eating the food provided; though sat with two fellow Maquis, Suder’s back was turned to them and his cold, dark eyes perused the other diners with the same hungry intent that he exercised a few moments later when selecting the next item to fill his plate.

“Let’s sit over there,” Jor said, pointing to some empty seats several tables over, far from the unnerving Betazoid.  

Dalby hadn’t finished his commentary. “And there goes Henley,” he said, tipping his head towards a group of uniformed _Voyager_ officers – Baytart included – that had a casually-dressed figure in their midst. “Stalking her prey.”

Jor whirled to glare at him. “Hey. Don’t be mean.”

“I don’t mean any harm by it,” Dalby returned with a smirk and his palms raised.

“Maybe. But she doesn’t need you … stirring up her reputation.”

“Hell, it’s just us,” Dalby grumbled. “Lighten up.”

As Gerron shifted uncomfortably and Tabor, unhelpfully, said nothing to back her up, Jor heaved a sigh and headed for the vacant seating she’d picked out, assuming that the others would follow her. Which they did, trailing behind on the meandering path she had to take to get there through the hive of activity.

Before the four of them had even managed to take their bags off their backs, remove their hats from their heads, and pull out chairs, Zarelian servers had closed on their position with plates, glasses and eating utensils, the latter comprising of a bizarre fork/spoon hybrid and a knife so blunt that it looked like it would struggle to cut melted butter. The spreading of some semi-solid milk by-product onto a potato-like vegetable turned out to be the only purpose of the blade. None of the other foods required cutting into smaller pieces before eating. Tabor made a comment on that, which one of the Zarelians sitting opposite overheard. The Zarelian woman divulged that, since an unprecedented incident a decade ago when a brawl had broken out between a band of visiting merchants and some locals, sharp knives had no longer been made available at these receptions for off-worlders.

“It’s not that we don’t trust you specifically,” the Zarelian insisted, recounting in an entertaining fashion the details of the incident in question, which had all started over a business deal gone wrong. She then took a great interest in Gerron’s earring – it turned out he did prefer to wear it when off duty, feeling that something was missing when it was absent from his ear. Tabor had departed to find a public toilet when that exchange had started up. Jor hoped that, when he returned, the Zarelian wouldn’t ask why his right ear was bare given that he and Gerron were clearly of the same species. But Gerron had – by perception or chance – downplayed just how few Bajorans chose not to follow that tradition, and, given that the young Bajoran was not exactly talkative by nature, the subject of conversation had moved on to hairstyles by the time Tabor returned.  

Henley managed to part herself from Baytart and his friends in order to drop by for a while, her chatter forced to take a pause as the Captain and a Zarelian dignitary took to a makeshift podium to each give a short speech – Janeway thanking the Zarelians for their hospitality, the Zarelian wishing the Captain and the _Voyager_ crew a safe journey onward.

“I haven’t seen Frank anywhere,” Tabor said, laying down his cutlery onto the now empty plate in front of him. He’d said very little while they’d been eating and hadn’t seemed to be listening either at times.

Jor shook her head, watching Tabor rather than searching the crowd for Darwin. “Nor me.”

“He’s been up on that balcony taking holo-images,” Gerron told them, pointing a finger up to a railing-bounded platform projecting out from the upper floor of a red bricked building to their left. “But now he’s over there with Doyle and Carlson.”

Darwin – holocamera in one hand and a tankard in the other – was settling himself down opposite Doyle. Suder had vanished, most likely having eaten his fill and headed back to the ship to keep his own company once more.

“It’s a good idea he has to document the journey,” Dalby said, with a tip of his head towards Darwin. “The Captain’s log, the ship’s sensor logs, navigational logs – all that stuff is never going to tell the full story of what we do out here. Especially not how we underlings live day-to-day. Darwin’s no impartial reporter – he’s Starfleet through and through, but … I think he could do a good job of it. You know what I mean?”

“He’s a clever guy,” Tabor added. “He needs something beyond his duty tasks to keep his mind stimulated.”

“I think we all do, don’t we?” Dalby grumbled. “Downtime’s getting to be boring as hell.”

Which was all the more reason to make the most of opportunities such as those which this stopover had provided.  

Tabor gave a nod. “But some of us are content if we can fill our downtime with activities that don’t require much thought like hanging around in Sandrine’s or going for a run around the corridors – our duties give us enough of a mental workout. Others of us find our duties so boring that we need to do something more intellectually-challenging in our leisure.”

It sounded like a pre-prepared statement, the words tripping off Tabor’s tongue as if he were reciting something from memory. Narrowing her eyes to gauge him properly, Jor’s assessment was hindered when Tabor turned aside and his expression was no longer visible to her. By the time he faced her again, the conversation had moved onto the ludicrous subject of Janeway’s hair and how the group’s bald Zarelian dinner companion had been so fascinated by it. Even Gerron cracked a smile at that, Jor noting with pleasure that the kid had become gradually more vocal as the day had gone on. With luck, his habitual withdrawal would not reset at the end of this day, and he would continue his social integration.    

“I wonder how long it’ll be until we get a day like this again,” Jor said to Tabor, after Dalby and Gerron had left for the transport point. A local clean-up crew was beginning to shepherd those remaining _Voyager_ crewmen and their Zarelian companions towards one end of the plaza so that the rest of the area could be cleared of tables and chairs. Janeway and Chakotay still lingered around the northern entrance, a point which each of the _Voyager_ crewmembers would walk by on their way to transport back to the ship. Tabor had initiated a slow lap around the fringes of the plaza, Jor falling into step beside him.

“Optimistically, it could be weeks,” Tabor replied. “Realistically, I’d guess … months? Longer, even. There’s more non-aligned space ahead, but it doesn’t mean there’ll be any M-class planets with the kinds of recreational opportunities such as we’ve had here.”

“And every diversion we make adds onto our overall journey time.”

Halting alongside a heavily pitted stone statue of some famous Zarelian, Tabor turned to Jor as she came to a stop as well. “We have to make the effort to live as normal a life as possible _on_ the ship.”

“I already told you to decorate your quarters,” she reminded him with a wry smile.

“And I’m making progress,” he rejoined, a smile tugging at his own lips for a brief moment. “But it’s other things too. If we’re going to live the rest of our lives on _Voyager_ then we need to be able to do all the things – at least most of the things – that anyone on, say, Earth or Free Bajor would do, albeit if in a limited capacity.”

She frowned, unclear of whether the ‘we’ he spoke of was intended to mean _Voyager_ ’s crew as a whole or refer to the two of them only. Either way, her response still made sense. “If we lived on Earth or Bajor we’d have choices that we don’t have out here.”

“I know we’d have more choice of … employment, for example –”

“We don’t have _any_ choice in our employment on _Voyager_ ,” she cut in.

“That’s not strictly true. People move departments –”

“But not usually because they’ve asked to.”

“But if someone were to show an aptitude for … piloting, for example, and they were currently working in engineering…” Swallowing hard, he met the glare that he must have expected would come from her with a challenging look, relenting after a moment. “But I didn’t mean to get on to that,” he said softly, eyes turning down. “Even though I think it’s important in the long term that everyone fits into their right place in our … community. Everyone has to have a place where they can contribute the most and get true satisfaction from their work.”

“Assuming those in charge allow that kind of flexibility.”

“It might be a very gradual process.”

They started walking again, spotting Chell and Golwat making their exits – both carrying plates of, presumably, leftovers in their hands. It was getting darker as many of the streetlights switched off, but Janeway could still be seen under one spot of illumination, still near the entrance to the plaza.

“Do you think she’s waiting until every one of us is back on the ship?” Jor asked. “We should hurry up.”

“Maybe. Or perhaps she just wants to stay here in this normality until the last minute. She needs it as much as the rest of us.”  

Which was a perfectly sound conclusion. Janeway was a mere mortal just as the rest of them were, with needs like any other sentient being. Jor thought back to her previous conversation with Tabor regarding the Captain and her mental balance. Janeway’s stress levels would surely benefit from more stopovers such as this one.

Before they got to within earshot of the Captain (who was now engaging in a lively discussion with the Bolians), Jor was startled by Tabor’s hand grasping firmly at her elbow, pulling her out of step. “Wait,” he said sharply.

“What’s wrong?” she said, whipping her head around to look for a threat of some kind, her hand instinctively moving to her belt even though she carried no phaser today.

“Nothing,” he quickly assured her, releasing her arm and raising his palms in apology. “I’m sorry if I alarmed you.”

She frowned, irritated out of fright. “Then … what?”

His explanation didn’t come straight away, giving her racing pulse time to return to its baseline and her breath time to revert to an even rhythm. They were liable to quicken again though in annoyance if he didn’t soon say whatever it was that he intended to. Whatever had caused him to scare her like that.

“I just wanted to put what I said in another way,” he stammered eventually. “Which is that … we have choices here on _Voyager_ that we didn’t really have in the Maquis.”

Seemingly satisfied that he’d made his point, he gave a quick nod, and resumed a slow pace towards Janeway and, consequently, _Voyager_. Jor began to process his statement, deciding that, especially in light of the rest of the day, it would require further analysis. Detecting that she was yet to pick up her stride, Tabor stopped, glanced over his shoulder and waited. Drawing in a deep, steadying breath, she hastened to follow him.

 


	7. Chapter 7

_Investigations_

Another dead comrade. Maquis or Starfleet, it didn’t matter anymore: the loss was felt just as painfully by all. And the latest death – that of Frank Darwin – had come with an added complication: Lon Suder was lost now too, to all intents and purposes. Not that Suder had ever contributed much to shipboard life except in being a competent engineer. Jor had found his presence far less noticeable on _Voyager_ than in the Maquis, though it had always brought with it an atmosphere of disquiet. Suder had never had the chance to show off his thoroughly efficient fighting skills on _Voyager_. The Kazon had got off lightly in that regard.

A significant number of the crew wanted the Betazoid executed, and not just among the war-weary Maquis – where Dalby and Yosa shouted the loudest – but among the original Starfleet crew, those who’d grown up with the Federation’s anti-death penalty judicial system. When the crew had been ordered to abandon ship after Janeway had set _Voyager_ ’s self-destruct as a weapon against Dreadnought, Dalby had been stuck in an escape pod with Suder and a security detail. Suder should have been left on the ship to die, Dalby had said, and many others had agreed with him.

Jor turned cold to think of the times that she’d spent alone with Suder working in some Jefferies tube or in some otherwise empty corridor. He’d never shown any signs that he was about to snap – barely saying two words to her – but that didn’t mean he’d not been thinking of doing her harm. And Tabor had spent even more time with the Betazoid than Jor had. To think that it could have been Tabor who’d had the back of his head bashed in with a coil spanner. Tabor, murdered by one of their own without provocation. That thought made her stomach threaten to empty right there in the turbolift.

It was another reminder of how precarious life was on _Voyager_ , as if the loss of Bendera hadn’t been warning enough. There were threats from without and from within, both from natural phenomena and from the deliberate acts of sentient beings. Who else among them might crack and do something crazy, if not now then at some point in the future? And Janeway had shown once again that she’d sacrifice the ship – the crew’s only way back to the Alpha Quadrant – if she felt the circumstances demanded it. Nothing could be taken for granted.

Frank Darwin had been a thoroughly nice guy. Nobody had a bad word to say about him, nor had they ever as far as Jor could remember. Knowing now the Starfleet protocol for the storage of a deceased crewmember’s belongings, Jor had decided to write a letter to Darwin’s family back on Earth: the sisters he’d so often talked about. While the memories were still fresh in her mind, she’d noted down a few of the experiences she’d shared with the man, the first member of _Voyager_ ’s Starfleet crew to make her feel like she could truly belong on a Starfleet vessel. Tabor had composed a short letter of his own when she’d told him what she was doing and then Dalby had taken up the idea himself, spreading the word to other engineers. Jor had collected all the letters on a PADD and handed them to B’Elanna, asking if they might be stored with Darwin’s things. Even if it took the estimated seventy years to get home, perhaps at least one of Darwin’s sisters might yet live and appreciate the sentiment.

With _Voyager_ now a day out of Rakosa, they’d found themselves called to the Captain’s ready room: Jor, Tabor and Dalby. In over a year on the ship, Jor had only once set foot on deck one, during that first tour of the ship with Lieutenant Rollins. So this summons had come as a slightly unsettling surprise.

She’d followed Tabor and Dalby out of engineering and into the turbolift, the three of them speculating as to why they’d been sent for by the Captain. It had to be one of Janeway’s random ‘getting to know the crew’ exercises, Tabor suggested. Yosa and Chell had been called to Janeway’s ready room a few days before the Dreadnought incident for one such audience. Chell had managed to smash a china teacup and had spent much of the meeting picking slivers of wet porcelain off the carpet. Finding Henley and Gerron already waiting in the ready room prompted Jor to surmise that the reason for today’s summons had to do with the recent shore leave on Zarelia. Not that she could share that theory with Tabor and Dalby now that they were standing in silence waiting for the Captain to speak.

The three engineers had lined up beside Henley and Gerron, with Janeway remaining seated behind her desk. The meeting began with the Captain setting the five of them at ease and a minute or so of what seemed like idle chat, though each of them only spoke when directly addressed by the Captain. Just like good Starfleet officers. With her peripheral vision, Jor took in the décor of the room. Flowers – real or artificial, it was hard to judge – filled a vase by the window. Ornaments – giant glass balls – were dotted around. There was a photograph on a shelf of a man – the fiancé, no doubt – and a dog. Given how often the crew of _Voyager_ found themselves thrown about when the inertial dampeners failed to fully protect them, the Captain must have to tidy the place at frequent intervals. Jor had lost count of the number of times she’d returned to her own quarters to find anything not tied down had been flung in all directions. At least Starfleet knew how to make smash-proof furniture.

Janeway’s exact reason for summoning them remained a mystery until she directed the five standing crewmen’s attention to five objects laid out on her desk. Five identically-sized, neatly-paper-wrapped objects, each one with – Jor saw as she squinted – a name handwritten upon it. Their names.

“Given the circumstances, it’s taken longer than usual to clear Crewman Darwin’s quarters,” Janeway told them, getting down to business. “But now that his belongings have been sorted through, I’ve been left with a decision to make. And I’ve decided that Mr. Darwin must have been intending to give these to the five of you. To put them into storage with his other belongings would go against his wishes.” The Captain now rose from her chair, moved out from behind the desk, and lifted one of the objects. “I must confess, I am curious as to what’s inside,” she said, hefting it between her hands with a trace of a smile on her lips. The parcel was rectangular, flat, and about twice the width and length of a standard PADD, maybe a little thicker.

Janeway wasn’t the only one who was curious. Turning to Tabor, Jor locked eyes with him, saw realisation dawn on his face, and clued in herself a second later.

Tabor turned back to face Janeway, asking, “May I, Captain?” Shuffling forward a pace, Tabor gestured to the parcel marked with his name, the one in Janeway’s hands. “I think I know what’s in there.”

“Please.” Janeway said, handing it to him without delay. “Though if you’d prefer to open these in private,” she said, gazing around to all assembled and waving a hand to the parcels still lying on the desk, “then please feel free to do so.”

“I suspect they’re identical inside,” Tabor told her, finding a join in the paper and carefully peeling it back.

Wilfully ignoring any protocol, Jor shifted out of ‘parade rest’, taking a sidestep to peer more closely. Beside her, the others rearranged themselves for a better view as well. Darwin hadn’t scrimped on paper; Tabor had removed one layer, only to find another beneath it. Finally, he got through that too, revealing a silver-framed holo-image: six casually-dressed figures stood under a cloudless blue sky, with a colourful patchwork of fields in the background. It was a simple scene, a posed yet relaxed group of people enjoying a normal day of recreation. One of those images which Darwin had taken that day on Zarelia, just a couple of weeks earlier.

Staring in to Jor’s right, Henley choked down a sob as she too saw the image. Jor swallowed down the lump in her throat, cursing Henley’s lack of emotional control for its infectiousness. Tabor handed the image to the Captain, who smiled sadly again as she studied it closely. “Crewman Darwin took this?” she asked Tabor.

“Yes, Captain. During our last shore leave.” Tabor busied his hands, folding up the paper he’d just removed, his jaw tight.

With the slightest nod, Janeway passed the image back to Tabor, who croaked out a “thank you” as he took the frame back with his empty hand.

“There was a similar image on display in Darwin’s quarters,” the Captain said softly, almost to herself. “I might have assumed that these parcels contained the same given that your names were on them.”

“It was a nice gesture from him,” Tabor said, his voice clear and even now. “It’s sad that we can’t thank him.”

“Indeed,” Janeway agreed. Handing out the other wrapped parcels, she nodded encouragingly at Henley, who’d begun to tear into hers but then had hesitated as though she thought perhaps she should wait for explicit permission.

“It is a little different,” Henley said, as she held the unwrapped image close to her face a moment later. “Our expressions aren’t the same as in the other one. And Frank has his hat on here.”

“Darwin sure did take a lot of pictures that day,” Dalby remarked, to a murmur of agreement from the others.

Jor held back from opening the parcel in her hands. Neither Dalby nor Gerron had begun to open theirs either. Janeway didn’t comment on it. She’d already made it clear that they should each act as they saw fit with regards the matter. Silence fell, and it seemed the Captain was about to dismiss them, but then Dalby cleared his throat and stepped forward. “Permission to speak freely, Captain?”

Jor couldn’t help but tense up at Dalby’s tone, which held a threat of something unpleasant. Dalby might have learned some self-restraint in recent months, but he was still prone to speaking out of turn to his superiors. B’Elanna usually let it slide unless he was challenging her directly, but there was no way that Janeway would.

The Captain’s eyes narrowed. It was an almost imperceptible reaction, but definitely there. “Permission granted,” she stated, straightening beyond her usual bearing.

“Darwin was a good guy. Very genuine,” Dalby began, struggling to get his words out. The six pairs of eyes turned upon him probably hindered his focus, but he’d chosen to speak and clearly wanted to get something off his mind, content for all present to hear what he had to say.

“He was,” Janeway said, when the pause became awkward, still looking expectantly at Dalby, whose cheeks were beginning to redden.

Sucking in a breath, Dalby glanced down to the parcel in his hands, before returning his attention to Janeway. “He didn’t deserve to die like that, Captain.”

“Nobody does, Crewman.”

“And, I…” Dalby paused again.

Crunching her teeth together, Jor could sense Tabor still as a statue beside her. Henley had stopped sniffling. Gerron, as usual, didn’t make a sound either.

“Please, go on,” Janeway prompted.

Jor couldn’t bear to look at Dalby now, fearing that he was about to get himself into hot water. ‘Permission to speak freely’ had its limits, and if Dalby was about to start spouting what he’d been sharing of his opinions in the mess hall and in engineering all week to the Captain’s face then Jor didn’t want to be present to hear it.

“And … well, I just wanted to tell you that he’ll be missed,” Dalby went on. “Even though he wasn’t one of your senior officers, he was still important to people.”

“Every member of this crew is important, Mr. Dalby,” Janeway said, glancing around, meeting the eyes of each of them. “All of you. Whatever rank you hold.”

It certainly didn’t seem like that was always the case. Very often, the senior staff (with Neelix and Kes) were the only ones who knew exactly what was going on, with the lower ranks left in ignorance, carrying out orders that only made sense long after the fact. That might be normal procedure on a Starfleet vessel, but it wasn’t an easy way to live permanently for the lower ranks. Relying on pieces of information passed along from bridge crew (or Ayala, who always seemed to be in the thick of it) was a commonplace way for the junior crewmembers to find out what was happening. But hearing Janeway speak, Jor felt assured that the Captain did believe what she was saying, even if her actions didn’t always reflect that.

To Jor’s – and likely everyone else’s – relief, Janeway dismissed them then, Tabor leading them out via the bridge to the turbolift into which they crowded in silence, only speaking when the lift began to carry them downwards, back to their usual locations on the lower decks.

“You were about to tell her what you think about Suder, weren’t you?” Henley hissed at Dalby.

Jor exchanged a look with Tabor, knowing that he was thinking the same as she was – the same as Henley was.

“I had it on the tip of my tongue to volunteer myself as a one man firing squad, yes,” Dalby responded sharply. “But I decided it wasn’t the time or place.”

Henley snorted. “Though when else are _you_ going to get the Captain’s ear?”

“The point is,” Gerron broke in to everyone’s surprise, “Frank wouldn’t want Suder to die. So, whatever the rest of us think about it … we should probably put it aside. Not waste our energy on something that’s out of our control.”

“He’s right,” Jor said, the first to find her voice. Her own thoughts on the Suder issue were somewhat divided. Taking a life could be justified in self-defence, but capital punishment was a little different. Of course, with Suder dead, there’d be no risk of him escaping his ‘cell’ to endanger anyone else on the ship. There were plenty of ways to justify executing him. But Darwin was a proud citizen of the Federation. He wouldn’t have wanted Suder put to death.

“I’d like to take on the project that Darwin started,” Gerron said, with a startling, ongoing confidence. “I know Neelix is starting that … news program, and the archives of that might tell some of the story of the lower decks, but what Darwin proposed to do was a lot more involved.”

“And less … gossipy,” Tabor said. “I saw the plans for Neelix’s first briefing. It’s not looking like award-winning journalism.”

Jor smiled. “I think Darwin would have liked that: someone carrying on with his idea.”

“I’m not as assertive as Darwin was,” Gerron continued, “but I can observe, I can make notes. And I think I’d enjoy recording images with a holo-camera.”

“Sometimes you have to be bold if you’re going to get in among the action,” Henley said. “Persuasive.”

“Or you don’t make a scene and just merge into the background unobtrusively,” Gerron countered.

“But maybe not pester or take images of anyone who doesn’t want to be included,” said Tabor.

“You should definitely do it,” Dalby said, obviously pleased. “But, like Tabor says, don’t go stalking around taking pictures like you’re some undercover reporter. Nobody will like that.”

Especially not the Maquis. Not after Meyer and Li Paz had caught on to that Federation journalist sniffing around trying to infiltrate the organisation on Telfas Prime. None of the Maquis would want to be reminded of that.  

Henley exited at deck six where she was working through shuttle flight sims with Jenkins and Culhane. Gerron stepped out – smiling – at deck eight, headed for the science lab where he’d been assigned to help Sam Wildman catalogue microbial samples. The rest of them returned to engineering, Tabor carefully stowing the holo-images in a locker for safekeeping.

Jor picked up her tools and, trying to put aside for now the mixed feelings that the meeting with Janeway had brought to the surface, got on with her work.  

###

Tabor filed the last of his daily reports, ready to hand over his station to Swinn and head off duty. It had been an emotional day, the posthumous gifts from Darwin a pleasant but poignant surprise. And if Tabor went through with what he had planned for later – if circumstances allowed – then the day might be more challenging still to his nerves. Given events so far, tonight might not be the best time to raise the subject that he’d been hoping to with Jor. He could always back out, postponing it until a later date. It wasn’t as if he’d told her he wanted to speak to her about anything in particular. But, as he’d been working up to it, running through her possible responses in his mind and formulating answers of his own to use depending on how she reacted, it seemed best to get it over with sooner rather than later.

And it was a subject worth raising even if Jor didn’t react favourably in the short term. In the long term, she would appreciate his efforts, he was sure of it.

Swinn arrived. Greeting his ever punctual replacement, Tabor logged off the console before collecting the two holo-images from the storage locker – Dalby had already taken his own – and seeking out Jor.

Finding her handing over her post to Mulcahey, Tabor waited for her to finish briefing the ensign on her progress at the task so far, then walked with her, elbow to elbow, towards the corridor and the turbolifts, just as they always did when they finished a shift together.

“Dinner later?” he asked casually.

“Mess hall take-out or replicated?”

“Definitely replicated.”

Glancing up at him – a little strangely – she then turned her attention forwards once more, narrowly avoiding getting bowled over by Chell, who was late for his shift, it appeared. Cursing quietly at the Bolian’s back – a sentiment that Tabor echoed wordlessly – Jor recovered her poise and let out a sigh. “I would,” she said apologetically, “but I’m a little short on rations.”

That wasn’t a problem. Not after last night on the holodeck. Tabor was a little surprised that she hadn’t quizzed him about that, but they’d missed each other at breakfast, and lunch had been rushed. Smiling, he assured her, “Oh, I have enough for both of us,” realising as he did so the origins of that look of confusion she’d given him: she’d believed _he_ was low on rations too. As involved as they were in each other’s lives, a detail like that would never get past her – or him if the situation were reversed.

“How’s that?” she asked, frowning as she moved into the turbolift beside him, stating the inevitable, “You were running on empty yesterday.”

“I was, but today I am … flush, I think is the right term,” he said, keeping his smile well-fuelled. “I’ll tell you about it later.”

“Tell me now.”

She instructed the turbolift for her deck, Tabor doing likewise for deck nine, thinking all the while how best to describe his accomplishment.

“I won some rations,” he said, deciding to keep it simple, meeting her raised eyebrows with as neutral an expression as he could muster.

“And why do I suspect that Tom Paris was involved somehow?” Jor asked, leaning back against the side of the turbolift as the doors closed and it began to move, adding, before Tabor could respond, “Hasn’t he been reprimanded by Chakotay for running gambling activities?”

“It was a card game, not another radiogenic particle sweepstakes. And yes, Tom was there, presiding over it, but he didn’t make any profit. He was helping me out. I didn’t know the rules at first.”

“So … you won at cards? At a game you’d never played before?”

“Yes. It was some variety of poker. I forget the name. Against the Delaney sisters and a few of the pilots – Jenkins, Grimes and Hamilton.”

“And Paris helped you, but he didn’t want anything for himself?”

“That’s right. He even loaned me the rations to place my first bet.” Tabor watched as Jor debated something internally, her eyes fixed on a point on the wall over his shoulder, her mouth pressed tightly shut. She wasn’t a natural cynic, but, despite having had barely any personal interaction with the man, her attitude to Tom Paris had always been frustratingly sceptical. Whereas Tabor had always been open to the idea of Paris’s reformation, Jor had a blind spot to that same possibility, which was difficult to understand.

Prompted by the arrival of the turbolift at deck nine, Jor redirected her gaze to meet Tabor’s, and shrugged. “Just how many rations did you win?”

Letting the smile on his lips broaden into a wide grin, Tabor stepped out of the open doors, turning and holding a hand up to block them from closing after him. “Enough that we can have pretty much whatever we want tonight,” he told her, failing to keep the boastfulness out of his voice.

Her eyes widened before she smiled in return, and he knew then that, however the rations had been come by, she was willing to help him spend them. “Nineteen hundred?” she asked.

“Or sooner if you’re ready.”

“Then I’ll see you in a bit.”

Letting the lift doors close, Tabor stepped back and strode the short distance to his quarters, realising that, along with the holo-image he’d unwrapped in Janeway’s ready room, he still carried the sealed parcel marked with Jor’s name. It didn’t matter; she could collect it later. Setting both holo-images down flat on the table, Tabor ordered a glass of water from the replicator and sank onto the sofa to unwind for a few minutes. To think with no distractions.

Jor’s attitude towards Paris wasn’t going to help Tabor’s cause later given that it was something Paris had said that had inspired Tabor’s idea. Or maybe not inspired it, exactly – it had been at the back of Tabor’s mind, something similar had, at least, for a while. In any case, Paris’s involvement was going to be a sticking point.

Checking the chrono, Tabor knew he had a couple more hours to think about it. He could further fine tune what he wanted to say to her. And maybe use some of those replicator rations on a glass of ale to calm his nerves.

 

###

“I knew I’d forgotten to take this from you as soon as I got to my quarters,” she said, gesturing to the holoimage on the desk as the door to his quarters hissed shut behind her. “Don’t let me leave here without it, will you?”

She’d felt bad about the memory lapse, but her sonic shower had been calling out to her and there’d seemed no logic in taking the lift back down to deck nine when she was going to see Tabor again that evening.

“I really hate that we can never say thank you to him,” Tabor said, with a shake of his head as he ushered her in to his living area. “It really bothers me.”

“Yeah, me too. But I suppose there’s nothing to be gained by dwelling on it.”

“True.”

She headed straight for the sofa, sitting on the left hand side, just as she always did. Tabor took up his usual position to her right, drawing his knees up under himself and facing her.

They talked about Gerron and his new project. About Neelix and his ongoing quest to find willing participants for his briefing program. The Talaxian wanted to conduct interviews with each crewmember for the show, and, from what Tabor had overheard in the mess hall, Neelix planned to ask some pretty probing questions about each participant’s life history. If he had any sense, Neelix would tread carefully on that when it came to the Maquis. Not that many of the Maquis were likely to volunteer to be interviewed in the first place. Jor certainly wasn’t going to offer. She’d rather agree to be a taste tester for Neelix’s ‘upcoming menus’, and, when she told Tabor that, he laughed and his eyes locked on to the replicator behind her head.

“So, what do you want to eat?”

She hadn’t decided, preferring not to think too much about dinner and the associated issue of how Tabor had acquired the rations. Not that she minded him taking to the holodeck without her tagging along. They weren’t joined at the hip. They could spent time apart. If he wanted to play card games with other members of the crew then that was entirely up to him. But she didn’t want him getting into trouble for gambling. And, quite frankly, she didn’t want him falling under the influence of Tom Paris at all. But those worries weren’t helping her choose her dinner. “What are you having?” she asked.

“Something Bajoran tonight. Veklava, maybe. With mapa bread. I haven’t thought about dessert.”

Tabor rarely replicated anything Bajoran. And Jor couldn’t even picture what veklava was. “Are those in the replicator files?” she queried.

“They were when I last checked. Why?”

“I just don’t remember you ordering them before.”

“That’s because I haven’t. Not on _Voyager_.” Raising a hand to scratch his ear – his right ear – he paused in thought. “Maybe I never ate them in the Maquis either. But, when I was a kid, they were our staple diet, at least when there was enough grain to make them. And I was thinking … it’s good to do things that recall those times sometimes.”

He was subtle, she’d give him that. But she recognised the manoeuvre as one he’d tried before. Narrowing her eyes at him, he didn’t flinch, didn’t even blink, this time. She wasn’t about to start trawling through her memories to come up with her favourite childhood foods. Not today. So, she went for the easiest option. “I’ll have the same as you.”

Mapa bread, it turned out, went very well with Terran peanut butter, Tabor replicating a pot of the smooth, light brown paste as an experiment. And, as veklava on its own was rather bland, he ordered some Circassian figs, remembering that back on Salva IV, Jor had enjoyed eating those fresh from the orchards. It was a bizarre combination of foods, but by far the best meal they’d had on the ship in a while.

“Hey, did you find out how Henley got on with Baytart on that date? You haven’t mentioned anything about it.”

Henley, Baytart, and ‘the double date that hadn’t happened’ had been a no-go area for conversation as far as Jor had been concerned, given the awkwardness that had surrounded its mention before. But there was no evidence of any disquiet in Tabor’s demeanour now. Not from what Jor observed over the top of her wine glass.

She took a gulp, and then, deciding that what remained in the glass wasn’t worth leaving, she downed the rest of it. “It went well, from what I could gather from her. They’re going to holographic Amsterdam next. I guess Baytart must like canals.”

Without prompting, Tabor got up to fetch her a refill from the replicator. “I’d have thought she’d be inflicting you with all the details,” he called across.

Jor smiled, flashbacks of Henley’s previous ‘detail inflictions’ reminding her what she’d avoided this time. “Luckily for me, she seems to want to keep it quiet.”

“I guess it worked out for the best that you were working that night.”

She’d have paid good latinum to have seen the expression on his face as he said that. Because there was something in his tone … a smugness, maybe, that didn’t correlate with how he appeared when he’d faced her again, returning to the sofa with her drink.

Instead of handing her the glass, Tabor placed it on the coffee table, then sat – unless she was imagining it – marginally closer to her than before. “Talking of Henley and Baytart … I wanted to talk to you about something,” he said.

The cryptic comments that he’d made at the end of their shore leave flashed back into her mind. “Oh?”

“It’s … well, something I’ve been thinking about for a while – vaguely. And then, when I was working on the _Sacajawea_ ’s helm instrument panel the other day, Tom came down to the shuttle bay to make a proposal regarding the thruster alignment and we got talking.”

Tabor paused to reach for his synthale, by necessity turning away from her as he did so. Taking only a sip, he didn’t retain the glass, but took his time about setting it back down, before resuming his previous position. “I told him I’d never had the opportunity to learn to pilot a shuttle and he offered to give me a lesson on the holodeck.” Meeting her eyes again, she saw him steel himself, and before she’d had time to wonder too much about the necessity for that she had her answer. “I asked him if he’d be willing to teach you as well.”

She wondered if she’d misheard at first, squinting as she snapped out, “What?”

Swallowing hard, but holding her stare, Tabor slowly repeated, “A lesson. A piloting lesson. Just one to start with. To see how you like it.”

Then she’d understood correctly the first time. Except, she didn’t really understand at all. “Why would I want to do that?” she demanded, utterly confounded that he’d been speaking to Paris about her. “What did you tell him?”

“Only that you’d flown before we joined the Maquis.”

Aghast, she ran a hand through her hair, clutching at her head as she shook it. “But that’s nobody else’s business. How … why would you tell anyone that? Especially Tom Paris.” Without consciously intending to, she shuffled backwards, widening the gap between them on the sofa.

Tabor’s frown deepened. “But other people know that about you, don’t they?”

“A couple of people: Chakotay and B’Elanna. And they don’t know all the details.”

“I never told Tom any details. I just said that you’d flown atmospheric aircraft. That’s all. What exactly did you think I’d told him?”

Jor shrugged, taking a slow, steadying breath. As she put into perspective what Tabor was proposing and her initial, kneejerk reaction to it, she recognised that she’d be better off not jumping to irrational conclusions.

“Do you really think I’d go telling him – telling anyone – things you’ve told me and nobody else about your past without your permission? Details?”

She reached for her wine. He beat her to it, grasping the glass and pressing it into her waiting hand. “No. Of course not,” she said, meaning it and hoping that he knew that.

“You trust me, don’t you?”

“Yes. Absolutely.”

“Then, hear me out?”

She nodded. “All right.”

“Getting back to why you should do it – piloting a shuttle – why not use your experience? It shouldn’t take you too long to learn –”

“Flying prop planes in atmosphere is completely different to flying with impulse or warp engines in a vacuum,” Jor protested. “I used to fly crop dusters and hydroseeders. With the occasional cross-continent freight trip.”

The technology had been over four hundred years old. As with many aspects of life on Orcadia, the colony’s elders liked to use archaic technology when possible, to try to prove their point that the old ways were the best. That human ways were best. In fact, the outdated agricultural tech had been perfectly adequate to do what was required. There’d never been any shortage of crops, with plenty of surplus most years to trade to passing freighters. And Jor had never known anything different back then, having only read about such things as transporters and replicators.

“But the principles are the same,” Tabor countered softly. “The basic skills are transferable. Look, Tom gave Kes a few lessons and she’d never even sat in the cockpit before, but –”

“And look what happened there. He made a pass at her and ended up in a food fight with Neelix!”

“He did not make a pass at her. Who told you that? Henley?”

Jor gave a reluctant nod.

“And how would she know that if Tom and Kes were alone on the holodeck? It’s not true.”

“OK,” Jor conceded. “Maybe it’s just gossip. But, Paris … he’s irresponsible. Just lately he’s been scruffy, rude to Chakotay and Tuvok…”

“But look what he went through after the trans-warp flight. That’s got to have had an effect on him mentally.”

“He was arrogant and self-centred long before all that. I’ll concede that he’s done some good things for this crew, but some of those were probably so he could look good. I just … I think you’ve got him wrong. He’s got you…” Biting her tongue before she could utter the word she’d intended, she could see from his face that it was already too late. Why the hell hadn’t she shut her mouth and heard Tabor out as she’d agreed to?

“What? Fooled? Manipulated?” he said, his expression hardening. “Like Seska?”

“That’s not what I meant at all,” Jor retorted, challenging his stare now, holding it until his jaw unclenched, and reinforcing her point by reaching out with a tentative hand to tap his knee.

Bowing his head for a moment, he accepted that. “No. I know. And I’m sorry. But, I wish you’d have confidence in my judgement.”

How could Tabor be so forgiving of Tom Paris yet burn with a level of hatred that even Chakotay didn’t seem to express for Seska? It was a stupid comparison to make, Jor quickly decided. Paris’s betrayal of the Maquis hadn’t felt so personal to Tabor as Seska’s had. And it certainly helped that Paris wasn’t a Cardassian. Maybe Tabor was right when he saw something in the Starfleet Admiral’s son that Jor couldn’t. She wasn’t vain enough to believe that she was an infallible judge of character.

“OK,” she said, finally drinking from her wine.

“And admit that the reason you don’t want to do it – the flying – isn’t because you don’t like Tom. You’d be just as reluctant if the instructor was to be Culhane. Or Baytart, say.” Now Tabor’s hand fell to her knee. And he held it there as he continued, “You don’t want to get behind the flight controls because it would remind you of what you lost. It’s understandable. But, just think about it, please? For me?”

She’d do almost anything for him. And he only had her best interests at heart. But the thought of getting behind the controls of a shuttle – even a holographic one – stirred up too many memories. They weren’t bad memories. Not at all. Life had been simple. It had lacked excitement, but she’d been happy, with a stable home, and a loving family. Though they would not have loved the thought of her associating with a Bajoran. An alien.

The door mechanism bleeped. Naturally, they broke eye contact, turning towards the source of the sound.

“Are you expecting anyone?” she asked, not ungrateful for a chance to regroup her thoughts.

Shaking his head, Tabor released his warm grip on her knee. He stood and strode over to the door, slapping the release panel. Hard.

From where Jor was sitting, Tabor’s frame obscured her view into the corridor, but she’d heard enough from Ken Dalby in the last few years to identify the man by voice alone. “Excuse the interruption, but I think I have something of yours,” Jor heard Dalby say.

Tabor moved aside to let him enter. Dalby took a good look around the room, assessing just what he’d interrupted and sniffing the air appreciatively. “Something smells good,” he said, catching Jor’s eye and nodding a hello.

“And it’s all gone,” Tabor quickly told him. “Sorry about that.”

Dalby chuckled. “It’s all right. I’m not staying.” He had something clutched to his chest – a flat object that he handed to Tabor, saying wryly as he did so, “Look, as much as I like you both, I don’t think I need a picture in my quarters of you gazing at each other.”

Her curiosity piqued, Jor rose from the sofa to join the men. “What do you mean us ‘gazing at each other’?” she asked, as she paced across the room.

“Here, look.” Dalby pointed to the object – a framed holo-image, Jor could see – now in Tabor’s hands. This was what I unwrapped from Frank,” Dalby continued. “I suspect the poor guy had a mix up with his labelling.”

Tabor held the image into the light for the three of them to look at properly. Instead of six figures standing in front of the scenic backdrop there were only two. Two unposed figures, caught unawares, sitting on the ground, facing each other, smiling. Looking very … together.

“Maybe you should unwrap yours,” Tabor said aside to her, without taking his eyes off the image. “See if it’s like this.”

She lunged for it, lying as it still did on his nearby desk, chiding herself as she peeled back the paper for not looking at the package earlier. The image revealed beneath the paper wasn’t identical to the one in Tabor’s hands, but it was extremely similar: another candid shot of Tabor and herself, taken when they’d not realised Darwin was aiming the lens their way.

Seeing how the two of them appeared through the eyes of an outside observer was certainly … enlightening.

“Well then, I think that clears things up,” Dalby stated, peering in over her shoulder. “Frank must have meant for you two to have one each of those and the rest of us,” he stretched to pick up the group picture that Tabor had unwrapped in Janeway’s presence from the desk, “a version of this one. If you want a copy of this as well, we can easily replicate it. He wouldn’t mind.”

Tabor nodded, looking over at the image Jor held. “Right,” he said to Dalby. “You go ahead and take the one you want.”

Dalby’s gaze wandered from Tabor (who was oblivious to it) to Jor (who didn’t miss the fractional narrowing of Dalby’s eyes) then back to Tabor. “Then, I’ll let you get back to whatever it was you were doing,” Dalby said, which brought Tabor’s attention back into the room. With a final glance at Jor (and she was sure he was pressing down a smirk), Dalby wished them both a good evening and let Tabor usher him out the door.

###

When the door slid shut and Tabor twisted around, Jor was still standing there beside the desk.

“May I?” he asked, stepping closer and beckoning for the framed image she held tightly in her hands. Wordlessly, she passed it to him.

His breath had caught in his throat when his eyes had first set upon the image. He’d masked his reaction well, he thought. From Dalby, at least. Jor might have noticed, just as Tabor hadn’t missed her sharp inhale.

“It’s a really nice picture of us,” he said eventually, holding it next to the other one for comparison. They both are.” Turning to survey his quarters – as if he couldn’t describe every corner of the limited space with his eyes shut – he sought out the best spot to place the holo-image. “Where shall I put mine?” he asked. “That shelf there? Mounted on the wall? Or here on the desk, perhaps.”

Jor flipped over the frame that he handed back to her, and ran a finger along the back. “Frank thought of everything: flip-out stand, a casing of what looks like boronite whisker epoxy – that’s extremely shatter-resistant material. He must have used a month’s worth of replicator rations when he made these frames.”

Tabor nodded. “I think I’ll sit it here on the desk for now while I decide on a permanent location. And, how about I’ll make us some coffee?”

As he headed to the replicator, she returned to the sofa. He heard the clink as she set down the image Darwin had given her on the coffee table, smiling to himself as he ordered the drinks.

Back on the sofa, having delivered a steaming mug of raktajino into Jor’s hands and keeping the pungent Vulcan mocha for himself, Tabor adjusted the holo-image on the coffee table to face him more squarely.

Keen as he was to conclude the conversation that Dalby had interrupted, Tabor had the irresistible compulsion to broach something else first. To explore, albeit through a smokescreen, the issue that was quite literally staring him – them – in the face. He pointed to the holo-image with his free hand. “Tell me something,” he asked her. “Do you think Frank thought that you and I are … involved?”

Eyebrows lifting, Jor took a sip – several sips – of her coffee before responding, “He never said anything to me that suggested that he did.”

“No. Nor did he to me.”

“So … we’ll never know. Unless he mentioned it to somebody else.”

“Do you think other people think that we are?”

She drank from her mug again. “I don’t know. Possibly.”

“Obviously Henley doesn’t,” Tabor threw in, adding, “or she wouldn’t have asked you to go on that date.”

“No. Unless…”

“She was fishing?”

“Yeah. But, I think if she really wanted that information, she’d not have been so…”

“Subtle about it?” he finished, with a snort.

“Exactly.”

The business with Henley and Baytart had been the wake-up call Tabor had needed to get his intentions towards Jor settled in his own mind. He’d had cause to realise that it would be a good idea to finally get his ‘cards on the table’, as the human phrase went, sooner rather than later. Though not tonight. There’d been enough meaningful conversation for one evening just from his bringing up the flying lesson. And if he could just hint at it once more…

“Listen, you were right about the reason I’ve never wanted to learn to fly in space,” Jor said, changing the subject back onto its original course. “And my reluctance now really doesn’t have much to do with Paris. So, listen, I’ll make the effort and speak to him.”

Taken aback, Tabor’s surprise came through in his voice. “You will?”

“Tomorrow, though. I don’t want to talk any more about it today.”

That was a bargain he was happy to strike. “Agreed,” he said. “Only trivial chat for the rest of the evening. I promise.”

She smiled, the smile growing into a wicked chuckle. “Then, let me tell you what I heard about why Chell came running in late to his shift this afternoon.”

###

Paris was late. Only a minute (so far), but Jor wasn’t going to wait in the corridor outside holodeck two any longer for the man. He could come in and find her.

Another couple of minutes later, and she was still standing about in anticipation – apprehension – with only the grid-lined walls of the inactive holodeck for company. She could comm Paris and ask him (politely) where the hell he’d gotten to, but then she might appear too eager to be here. So, she queried the computer for his location. Cargo bay two, it informed her. Deciding that maybe he was on some official errand, she took a deep breath and resolved to be patient for a few minutes more. She was here for Tabor. It would please him that she was making this effort – that she’d listened to his advice and taken it. And she wanted him to be pleased. That thought of his happiness compensated for the growing tightness of her chest, the swirling in her stomach, and the weakness in her knees.

The number of minutes that passed before that patience expired was four. In her defence, an empty holodeck was one of the most boring environments imaginable, with nothing to distract her from her worries. She could start the program running, of course – if she knew which shuttle simulation program Paris used for training rookies. There were Starfleet shuttle training sims available for every shuttle type currently in service as well as for older models. Growing exasperated, remembering vaguely that Henley had been working towards her flight qualifications on the type-6, Jor selected and initiated that program.

She’d been inside one of these models on many occasions in the past year or so, most recently the _Sacajawea_. She’d been sent down to the shuttle bay on errands, had pulled a few shifts replacing ODN relays or power cells, and she’d been on a couple of away missions ferried by Hamilton or Culhane to scout for raw materials. But she’d never sat behind the helm controls.    

In a crunch, she was fairly sure she could fly one of these Starfleet shuttles. There was so much built-in automation that, under standard conditions, anyone with half a brain should be able to get the craft into space, fly it on a straight line or pre-programmed course, and get it back to _Voyager_.

Having found herself at the rear of the craft when it had materialised around her, she stepped forwards, rested a hand on the back of the pilot’s chair, and looked out of the cockpit windows. The scene outside mimicked _Voyager_ ’s shuttle bay, with the shuttle facing towards the open bay doors, a force field covering the exit into space. A basic first flying lesson would likely cover take off, getting the shuttle into space, and then maybe some basic manoeuvres using thrusters or at impulse. Though she was getting ahead of herself, perhaps, in assuming that. And, with Tom Paris, one could never really tell. He might not follow the Starfleet Academy curriculum, especially when giving a casual off-duty lesson. If he ever turned up.

She’d made it this far, regardless. She could tell Tabor she’d come down to the holodeck, waited, had even run one of the shuttle flight training programs, and, perhaps, seeing as she was here, something more…

Stepping around the pilot’s seat, she took a breath, and sank down into it.

The instrument panel was worlds away from the switches and dials she’d been used to on the planes back home and there was no yoke or no rudder pedals. Looking at the shuttle controls up close and from this perspective didn’t really give her any overwhelming sense of déjà vu or nostalgia. But, when she looked out of the forward window from this position, she did feel something familiar. A feeling of being in control of this craft. A responsibility.

Her heart beat a little faster – and it was already racing. She forgot, for a moment, that this wasn’t supposed to just be a therapeutic exercise. That Paris should be here giving her technical instruction. Closing her eyes, she tried to remember the details of that last time she’d sat in a pilot’s seat, running pre-flight checks before taking the crop duster up to cover the Peterson’s wheat fields with pesticide.

It had been a few days before the Cardassian attack – a Friday, the attack having occurred on a Monday morning. The weather had been mild, dry, with barely any wind all week. Her task was repetitive, but, as she had to make frequent landings to refill the tanks, the day was broken up into manageable sections. Søren, the landowners’ son, had helped her load the plane up with more of the chemical liquid during those breaks back at the hanger. They’d chatted and laughed through their face masks and protective goggles. She’d always enjoyed working with him. He’d been a classmate through school and they’d dated for a while before mutually deciding that theirs was a pairing of opportunity rather than one with any real long-term interest from either party.

Work had continued right through until dusk. She’d covered most of the ground that she’d planned to, filling out a progress report for her boss, and planning her workload for after the weekend: a weekend that had been spent celebrating her father’s birthday, being fussed over by her elderly grandparents, and kicking a ball around with her young cousins that lived next door.

Shaking those recollections – and the nausea that accompanied them now – away, she opened her eyes and checked the time. Where the hell was Tom fricking Paris? He was fifteen minutes overdue now, and, according to the computer, back in his quarters. When she’d approached him quietly in Sandrine’s to ask him about the offer he’d made via Tabor, Paris had seemed more than happy to arrange this time to meet. The man had seemed genuinely eager to be of help.

But, the fact was, he wasn’t here now when he should be.

Jor slapped her comm badge. “Jor to Paris.”

He took a few seconds to get back to her, before she heard a tinny and casual, _“Paris here.”_

“I’m in holodeck two,” she told him evenly, “where you were supposed to meet me at eighteen hundred.” Surely, she hadn’t got the wrong holodeck? No, the holodecks were never empty unless there was some emergency going on. If she was in the wrong one, she’d have company by now. Someone wanting to play hoverball, or to go skiing, or a couple wishing to visit some romantic getaway.

_“That was today?”_ Paris replied.

“Yes, Lieutenant. It was.”

_“Are you sure?”_

“Yes, I’m sure.”

_“Oh. Right.”_ There followed a long pause, and she was about to ask him if she should just shut the program down and forget the whole idea when he spoke again, _“Look, I’ve got a few other things I need to do this evening. I’m going to have to cancel.”_

And there: she was vindicated. Paris really was a jerk.

“I don’t have an unlimited holodeck usage allowance,” she snapped back, her frayed nerves getting the better of her self-restraint. “And I’ve just wasted twenty minutes of it standing around here waiting for you to show up.”

“ _How about you come find me tomorrow and you can let me know some other times that you’re free?”_ he responded, blatantly ignoring the point she’d just made, sounding completely unbothered by his oversight.

“Just forget it,” she muttered, not caring a damn about rank and his seniority as she petulantly cut the channel with a smack to her chest.

She stood on quivering legs and shut down the program, the grid-lines enveloping her once more. Tabor would be in his quarters, waiting for her to drop by and tell him how the lesson had gone. Torn between the option of skulking back to her quarters and waiting for him to contact her and following the plan, she went with the latter.

Some of her anger at Paris spilled over towards her friend, as, having contained the signs of her wrath through every exchange of pleasantries with other crew members along the way to Tabor’s quarters, she unloaded onto Tabor just how she was feeling: how she’d prepared herself mentally, suffered through the jitters from the time the lesson had been arranged until this evening, only for Paris to let her down. She wouldn’t be doing that again anytime soon.

Tabor tried to soothe her, even as she could see him trying to reconcile his confusion at Paris’s actions with the anger he clearly was feeling on Jor’s behalf.

“I’ll speak to Tom. Find out what’s going on and why he couldn’t let you know sooner that he couldn’t make it,” Tabor said. “It’s really bad form on his part, but maybe he is doing something important. Something work-related.”

“No,” Jor cried, refusing to follow Tabor over to the sofa. “I don’t want you speaking to him about this. I did what you wanted me to, Paris didn’t show, and now I’m asking you to leave it be.”

With a reluctant nod, Tabor gave in to her wishes, and only then did she sit down beside him and let herself calm down.

And that was the end of it, as far as Jor was concerned.

###

But, an eventful week or so later, Jor was stunned when Tom Paris, having left _Voyager_ to join a Talaxian convoy, returned a hero, having helped flush out the spy in their midst – Michael Jonas, a man that Jor had known for three years, and despite disliking him, would never have suspected of being a traitor. If Jonas hadn’t come down with that Mendakan pox back in the Alpha Quadrant, he’d never have even been on _Voyager_ in the first place. Nelson would have been here instead; and Nelson would never have turned traitor.

Paris’s return to _Voyager_ as a hero and his revelatory interview on _A Briefing with Neelix_ (while not showing the most respect with regards to Chakotay) had drastically altered Jor’s opinion of him for the better. The pilot’s recent behaviour was explained by what the Captain had asked him to do in service to the ship. His bravery and selflessness was evident through his actions. And Tabor’s judgement of character was not to be doubted after all, it seemed.

The first chance she got, Jor went to find Tabor. He’d had the day off, while she’d been stuck in a Jefferies tube the whole time since Neelix’s morning broadcast. An apology might not be strictly necessary, but she wouldn’t feel right without offering one. A conversation to banish any residual hurt feelings was needed, at least. She hated any upset between them, especially now when she was coming to realise that she might want more from their relationship.

Since her tirade, Tabor had been quieter. Distracted, at times, during meals or when they’d met up in one or another’s quarters to talk about their respective days. According to the computer, he was in his quarters now, so that's where she was headed: deck nine. The thought that she should have called him to say that she was on her way didn’t occur to her. Until he answered the door dressed in only shorts and pulling a sleeveless t-shirt over his head.

“I’m off to play springball with Gerron,” Tabor explained, beckoning her in from the corridor. “It must have slipped my mind to tell you.” He tugged at his shirt. “I replicated authentic kit.”

“Oh, well, you look … good,” she stammered, meaning it more deeply than she’d expected to, taking in the significance of that.

He grinned at her, his eyes twinkling, and, suddenly, the well-planned speech she’d had in mind to recite went out the airlock. Straightening, she started, “I won’t hold you up, I just wanted to say … about Paris and the holodeck and how I laid into you over it all … I’m sorry.”

Tabor had a hand held up between them, hushing her. “You were entitled to get mad, the Paris situation … it was messed up. But, that’s all over and done with.”

“So, we’re good?”

“I’m good if you’re good.”

Backing up from her, he padded over to his closet, returning with socks and a pair of sneakers that he sat down on the end of the bed to pull on. “Notice anything different in here?” he said, flashing a grin her way again. “Aside from my clothing.”

Jor let her gaze wander around the room to the furniture, the walls, and … “That’s the painting?” she gasped, as her eyes fixed onto a large – far larger than she’d expected – canvas hanging on the wall above the head of Tabor’s bed. Ensign Martin had clearly put some artistic interpretation into the painting rather than try to copy literally the image that Tabor had shown Jor all those months – maybe it was even longer than that – ago. The sea looked a little wilder, the colours more vivid, but it was perfectly recognisable and quite breathtaking.

Stepping closer to get a proper look, she suppressed the urge to reach out and touch it. Somehow, Martin had captured the texture of the rocks and seaweed in the foreground so that it looked as if on touching the canvas she’d really feel what those elements would feel in reality under her fingers.

“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” Tabor said. “I felt bad taking it from him, but he insisted. He’s got a painting of his own hometown up in his quarters that he brought on board before _Voyager_ left the Alpha Quadrant. His walls are like a gallery. There’s a portrait of his wife, a couple of what he calls abstracts. He’s working on something for Joe Carey now.”

“Martin’s very talented. I’d love to be able to paint or draw like that.” Jor smiled while she sighed, not taking her eyes off the painting. “I was hopeless at that stuff in school.”

“My brother could draw,” Tabor said quietly. “Not that we could always get paper for him to work on. But he was naturally gifted. Self-taught. I don’t know that a skill like that can be learned exactly. There’s got to be some … innate talent. Don’t you think?”

Jor turned back to face him now, anxious to assess how he’d reacted to that memory of his murdered sibling, reassured to find on his face a wistful smile. “Yeah, I guess so,” she replied.  

Glancing up over her head, he nodded at the painting, before turning his eyes downwards to meet hers. “Would you like to come with me when I go there?”

Her initial reaction was to jerk a thumb over her shoulder and babble, “To that … to Bajor? Tareja?”

“Yes.”

She drew in a long breath, swallowing the catch in her throat. “You realise that we could be in our nineties by the time we get back.”

“Then we’ll make sure we transport directly to the beach rather than hike the ten kilometres from the nearby town.”

Turning back to the painting, finding it easier to think that way, she still couldn’t help blurting out the unconstructive, “You might be sick of me by then – after seventy years on _Voyager_.”

“I highly doubt that.”

She felt his stare burning into the back of her head and didn’t miss his barely audible sigh.

“It’s a simple question,” he murmured. “Don’t think about all those variables.”

He was right. It was a simple question. Would she like to go to Bajor with Tabor to share the experience of visiting his ancestral home? It was an honour to be asked. It would be a privilege to go. The answer was really quite simple too. “Yes, I would love to come with you, actually,” she told him, turning back to see not the grin that she might have expected, but a look of an intensity that she’d not been on the receiving end of before from him. From anyone.

Tabor broke the silence, probably a couple of seconds later, though it felt to Jor like longer than that. “I shouldn’t keep Gerron waiting. God knows how long he’s been working up to asking me to play a match with him.”

Taking her eyes from Tabor’s face, looking him up and down once more as she shuffled towards the door, Jor couldn’t resist quipping, “If he plays springball with the same enthusiasm as he hikes, you’ll win easily.”

Despite wagging a finger at her, Tabor’s amusement clearly showed. “I’ll hold back a little, at least until he’s had some practise.”

“But don’t make it obvious you’re giving him a chance,” Jor warned. “He won’t appreciate that at all.”

“I am quite capable of being subtle,” Tabor returned, as he trailed her to the door.

“Yes, I know you are,” she said dryly, wondering at the twitch in his eyebrows at that.

“You could come down to the holodeck and watch the game if you wanted,” he said, as she pressed the door release panel.

“I doubt Gerron would appreciate a spectator,” she remarked, as, after Tabor remembered at the last minute to grab his comm badge, they exited into the corridor to head for the turbolift, “but, in any case, I actually have plans for tonight.”

“Oh? Anything interesting?”

“It could be described as that, I suppose,” she replied, leaving him wondering as she explained, “I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.”  

There was something else she ought to do this evening. And she was not looking forward to it one bit.

###

But, her plans turned out to be unnecessary, at least in part. Because while she was mustering the humility to approach Tom Paris for herself, he came to her first.

“Lieutenant,” she said in an exclaimed greeting, as, minutes after returning from Tabor’s quarters to her own, she answered a call at her door to find that Paris was her unexpected visitor. “I was hoping to speak to you later, as it so happens. I was going to come find you.”

“Ah, well, then, I’m glad to have saved you the effort – of coming to find me, that is. Is now a convenient time to talk?”

She invited him in, asked him if he’d care for a drink, which he declined; he’d come straight from the mess hall, he said, having ‘enjoyed’ there a cup of Neelix’s ‘even-better-than even-better-than-coffee substitute’, a new blend that the Talaxian had brewed in Paris’s honour.

“Will you sit down, Lieutenant?” she offered, and this he did accept, with her only sitting herself once he was firmly settled on the sofa. All day, in that suffocating Jefferies tube, she’d been talking herself into and out of approaching Paris with half an apology for her petulance (she couldn’t be held entirely at fault given the circumstances) and to ask whether that offer of flight instruction had been genuine and if it still stood. If Tom Paris could change, could grow as a person, then so could she. Why couldn’t she get past the things that were holding her back from fulfilling her potential on this ship, in this community?

“You know you can call me Tom when we’re off duty,” Paris said mildly, surveying the interior of her quarters with those piercing blue eyes of his, not missing a detail, she imagined. “I’d prefer it, in fact.”

She swallowed, nodding once. “All right. Tom.”

His gaze left hers and settled on the holo-image she’d kept on the low table in front of her sofa for the last week or so that she’d been in possession of it. Aside from Tabor, Jor rarely entertained guests in her quarters. And it wasn’t as if the picture of Tabor and herself was something she wished to conceal from anyone. But, she hadn’t expected to have it come under scrutiny. Especially not the scrutiny of Tom Paris. Although Paris’s expression gave nothing away, she got the sense that behind those eyes a great deal of analytical thinking was going on. And it bugged her.

Clearing her throat got his attention, and, with a trace of a smile that lasted barely a second, Paris looked up. “I wanted to explain myself – to apologise for my behaviour last week,” he stated.

“I understand you were just acting the part that the Captain asked you to play,” Jor replied, before he could continue, realising belatedly that she needed to stop doing that – she needed to let people have their say, uninterrupted.

“Regardless, I wanted to say that the offer was sincere. I’d be more than willing to coach you through the basic shuttle training sim. That night I stood you up, I did have something I needed to do – I had a meeting with Captain Janeway and Tuvok. But, I did know that that was due to happen beforehand, so, I could have cancelled on you with notice. Before letting you get to the holodeck. I was kind of counting on you to get mad and sound off about me to your friends. Just know that the way I used you wasn’t personal. It was just … the timing, the opportunity.”

It was ironic that the only friend she’d sounded off to about Paris would never have passed on her disgruntlement. And that she herself wouldn’t bring up Paris’s behaviour in conversation as her own issues with pilot training were such that she hadn’t wanted to discuss the situation with anyone. Anyone besides Tabor. But, she didn’t go into that with Paris. Instead, merely telling him, “I’m sorry for my temper. In hindsight. And, I was going to ask you about that training program.”

She told him that she’d got as far as loading one of the simulations and he confirmed that the type-6 shuttle was his preferred model for training.

“ _Voyager_ does need more crew members to qualify as pilots,” he informed her. “Out here in the Delta Quadrant it can’t hurt to multi-skill as much as possible. The Academy graduates will all have logged hours at the helm, even if it was years ago. But the enlisted crewmen and most of the Maquis have never had any flight training. Tabor mentioned you had some experience?”

Paris clearly took the hint from the look she gave him that she wasn’t happy getting onto that topic. Spending time behind the controls of a spacecraft was one thing, divulging her past flight experience was another. And it shouldn’t be necessary. “It would be better to assume I haven’t,” she said. “To start from scratch, I think.”

“Fair enough. We’ll arrange a time – and I think I can arrange for the lesson to take place during duty hours, to save using up your personal holodeck time.”

“You don’t have to do that, Lieut… Tom.”

“No, really. It’s fine. I’ll speak to Commander Chakotay. It’s no different to when Ensign Wildman wanted to spend some time out of xenobiology to gain more experience in operations. Chakotay just made a change to her duty assignment.”

A spike of panic – irrational, maybe, but that didn’t make it any less real – jolted through Jor. “Please, can we keep this unofficial? I just want to give it a try on a completely informal basis. If you don’t mind me taking up an hour of your leisure time. The original plan, as we discussed, as you first mentioned to Tabor when you spoke to him about it.”

Paris nodded, offering a reassuring smile and a palm raised in concession. “That’s OK by me.”

She voiced her thanks. He nodded, smiled again, and got to his feet. “I’ll contact you shortly with some possible times,” he said, as she rose to join him in standing. “I’ll need to speak to Harry so I don’t double-book myself. I think I owe him a few games of pool given the last couple of weeks.” Chewing his lip thoughtfully as he started towards the door, he went on, “Maybe, I’ll even subject myself to parrises squares with him. You’d think I’d be good at that game, wouldn’t you? But, he beats me every time…”

It still surprised her, even after hearing his public apology and receiving a personal one, how Paris seemed to feel the need to make up for the actions he’d taken on Janeway’s orders. Jor had always thought she’d lived by the motto of ‘speak as you find’. But, she’d really based so much of her opinion of the man on conjecture if she thought about it.

About to open the door for him, she had to track his gaze as it flicked back towards the holo-image on the table.

Paris responded to her frown as he returned his attention to her, saying, with a note of questioning in his tone, “And, I’m sorry if my mission – my bad behaviour – caused any tension between you and Tabor.”

“There’s no tension between us,” she insisted, thumping the door release a little harder than was warranted.

Paris’s eyebrows twitched, but he didn’t push the enquiry. Not exactly. “That’s good,” he said, backing into the corridor with that slight smile tugging at the corners of his mouth once more. “And that’s a nice holo-image that you have back there. A picture can tell a thousand words, don’t you think?”

“I’d say that’s often the case,” she said, finding herself smirking back, rolling her eyes when he’d left her. That particular picture did indeed say a lot.

 


	8. Chapter 8

_Resolutions_

“But, they’ve been in stasis for seventeen days. Just how much longer is the EMH going to take to come up with a cure for them?” All through his long rant, Yosa had drummed his fingers on the table top in an irritating non-rhythm. Jor felt the vibration in her elbows, deciding after a few more ‘bars’ of it to reach over and stop Yosa’s hand with her own. Yosa mouthed an apology. Dalby muttered a terse “thank you”. Noting Tabor glance across at her and Yosa’s stacked hands, Jor retracted her arm to her side.

“If he hasn’t found one yet, then I don’t think he’s going to,” Tabor said, sighing. “He’s had Murphy, Jarot and Mitchell staffing the science lab twenty four hours a day, running assays to triple check all the options he’s discounted just in case his program missed something penitent.”

“It’s _pertinent_ ,” Jor broke in, unsuccessful in stifling a laugh, glad of the opportunity for a lightening of the mood, in any case.

But then Grimes had to go and open his big mouth. “Why don’t you just speak Bajoran and let the UT do what it was designed for?” Grimes asked Tabor, the young crewman blanching then as the full weight of three Maquis stares was thrust upon him.

It wasn’t so much the question that Grimes had asked, but the tone in which he’d asked it. It was unlikely that he’d meant any insult by it, but, with everyone’s nerves on edge as they were, the comment had been unwise.

Grimes had taken up an empty seat at the otherwise all-Maquis mess hall table in order to chat with Henley about the gamma shift conn reports. But Henley had left after a few minutes, scoffing down her food in order to make a lunchtime tryst with Baytart. Grimes had stayed put, which was fine. Nobody minded. Until now.

Tabor hadn’t even glanced Grimes’ way, but, as he swallowed the last of the mouthful of stew he’d been chewing over, Tabor set down his knife and fork, and addressed the junior pilot, “I don’t want to rely on technology when I don’t have to,” Tabor said diplomatically, and Dalby, Yosa and Jor could all sit back and let Grimes off the hook. Nevertheless, Grimes took the first polite opportunity that presented itself to make his exit, joining a group comprised solely of original Starfleet crew over on the other side of the room.

“Getting back to my point,” said Yosa, after an intermission of idle chatter, “we can’t stay in orbit of this fucking planet forever. All these stopovers add time to our journey home. Think about it.” He pressed the tip of his index finger down onto the table, tapping for good measure. “In a journey of seventy years, if we spend an average of four weeks a year not moving forwards, that adds about, what, five years to our total journey. We’ve spent four weeks here already. And before this we had that stop at the Kohl settlement, the business at the Drayan system…”

“The latest rumour I heard was that the EMH wanted to contact the Vidiians for information on the virus,” Dalby said.

Yosa sat bolt upright. “You’re kidding. Really?”

Dalby nodded. “That’s what Gerron told me. And he heard it from Wildman, so, a reliable source, don’t you think?”

Samantha and her baby were currently surrounded by a huddle of half a dozen well-wishers up at the galley. Jor spied Golwat heading the delegation; when the Bolian woman stooped to get a closer look at the baby, a piercing wail cut through the air causing Neelix to come out from behind the counter and take charge of crowd management.  

“Sam looks like she’s doing well, considering all she’s been through,” said Yosa, tipping his head towards the epicentre of the commotion.

Jor sighed into her tea. “Yeah, I can’t even imagine the psychological trauma she’s had: losing her baby only to get it – her – back.”

“But, that baby in her arms isn’t the same baby she carried inside her all those months,” Dalby pointed out. “Hell, it was almost a year and a half, wasn’t it?”

“You can’t say that though,” Jor admonished sharply. “It’s – she’s – still her child, just like Harry Kim is still Harry Kim.”

“Yeah, but it’s weird. It creeps me out.”

“Maybe keep that to yourself, buddy,” Yosa said, clapping Dalby between the shoulder blades.

“So, it doesn’t make you feel uncomfortable?” Dalby went on, in a lowered voice. “They – Kim and the baby – died on this ship, and the rest of us died on theirs. All of us, over there, harvested for organs by the Vidiians.”

“Not all of us,” Jor said quietly, not wishing to prolong this line of conversation, but unable to stop herself from voicing a thought. “The other Janeway set the self-destruct. I just hope I was blown to pieces before the Vidiians got their hands on me.”

“Me too,” Tabor agreed, swallowing hard as his eyes met Jor’s, invoking that same nervous response in her.

“Well, I’m off,” said Yosa, getting to his feet and picking up his tray. “Maybe I can find something out from Ayala.”

Dalby twisted around in his seat to call out to their retreating comrade, “If you do, pass it along down the line, won’t you?” before he turned back to mutter to Jor and Tabor, “If it weren’t for the windows, we’d be lucky if we even knew where we were, sometimes.”

Dalby had a fair point. Communication from the senior staff to the lower ranks wasn’t getting any better as time went on. There was always B’Elanna to ask. Paris and Kim, too. But the latter pair spent most of their duty shifts up on deck one, so were not all that easily approachable during a crisis. And as for B’Elanna – everyone knew that, in a crisis, she was only to be approached when strictly necessary.

Yosa’s departure left the three of them alone at the table, quiet for a while until Tabor spoke next, his eyes tracking Sam Wildman as she and her baby wound their way through obstructions, static and moving, to get to a corner table under the window, Kes following them with a loaded meal tray. “ _Voyager_ ’s just no place for a kid,” Tabor said, shaking his head slowly.

“It’s not as if Samantha planned it that way,” Jor reminded him.

Dalby sat back, crossing his arms over his chest: a warning sign that he was about to give his opinion and that it could be on a medium to large scale. “But, sooner or later,” Dalby started, “one of these couples – like Jarvin and his girlfriend, or, heaven forbid, Henley and Baytart – they’re going to want to have a family. And, yes, eventually, _Voyager_ ’s going to need a new generation to crew the ship as people die off or get too old to do their jobs. But, what do we do with the kids for the eighteen years it’ll take each one of them to grow up to be capable of filling those roles?”

“I guess that would be between their parents and the Captain,” Jor said, thinking about the issue only for the first time.

“Yeah, if we ever get the Captain back on board,” Dalby returned, nodding. “But, shouldn’t she have set a policy by now? Something more concrete than the so-called frat regs?” He pointed his fork towards the Wildmans, now receiving a visit from Hargrove and White, the ‘handsome pair of lovebirds’ that Neelix had outed on his breakfast show. “That baby is giving people ideas, I’m telling you.”

Tabor shrugged. “Maybe, Janeway just wants to watch and wait. See how things pan out.”

Finishing the last of her pudding, Jor set down her spoon with a clatter. “I don’t envy her that sort of decision one bit.”

Dalby hadn’t finished. “People think they’ve got a human right,” he said, pausing to hold up a hand and correct his accidentally slip of the tongue, “sorry, I mean a basic right that all sentient beings should have, to have offspring.”

“Where I was brought up, children were always said to be a privilege rather than a right,” Jor recalled. “A blessing.”

“Children aren’t always a blessing, though,” Tabor cut in. “Not in all circumstances. When I think back to the camps on Bajor during the Occupation… We had this young married couple in the billet next door to us for a year or so. I remember one day hearing this awful noise; we thought someone was being beaten by a Cardassian guard. But it was the young woman – she’d found out she was expecting a child. She didn’t want to raise a family in those conditions and she was hysterical. Inconsolable.” He shrugged again. “Of course, _Voyager_ isn’t the same sort of environment as that. But, we face … mortal danger on such a frequent basis. You get my point.”

Dalby nodded. “You’ll get no argument from me on that.”

Seeking a break from the increasingly heavy tone to the conversation – if Tabor felt the need to reminisce about Occupied Bajor, she’d hear him out later when they were alone – Jor gathered the men’s empty plates and bowls with their used cutlery and stacked them with her own onto one tray. Getting to her feet, she asked, “Who wants some ‘coffee substitute of the day’?”

Dalby declined, rising himself. “I have to get back to work. I left a corridor access panel open down on deck six, and if anyone spots it unattended, I’ll get in trouble.” He rolled his eyes. “Got to keep my new reputation intact, right? Six months I’ve gone now without getting put on report.”

Jor chuckled. “Good for you.” And, then, the click of an audio channel opening heralding a ship-wide comm announcement halted their chatter.

“Ensigns Tabor and Murphy, and Crewman Jor please report to cargo bay two.”

The voice sounded like it belonged to Lieutenant Rollins, _Voyager_ ’s chief bureaucrat.

Locking eyes with Tabor, Jor saw the same curiosity in him as she felt herself. She motioned to Dalby, saying, “You wouldn’t mind clearing those would you?” as she backed away from the table and Tabor sprang to his feet to go with her.

“Fine,” Dalby uttered, continuing dryly, “and if you find out anything interesting down in the cargo bay –”

Tabor interrupted him. “Yes, we’ll be sure to pass it along down the line.”

###

“It’s going to be a nightmare,” Murphy whined, his voice disturbing the peaceful atmosphere of cargo bay two. An atmosphere that Jor had been appreciating after the hustle and bustle of the mess hall earlier. “Tuvok in charge,” Murphy droned on, “there’s a reason that Starfleet rarely gives a Vulcan command over a majority non-Vulcan crew.”

Jor and Tabor exchanged a look, her glancing up at him from behind a small crate of weapons, him peering down at her with a boxful of tricorders and PADDs balanced in his arms. What Murphy said was likely more-or-less true, though ‘a nightmare’ might be taking it a bit too far. Surely, it wouldn’t be _that_ bad.

“It’ll be difficult,” Tabor said, following up by voicing exactly what Jor was thinking: “but _Voyager_ ’s faced tough challenges before, and we’ve always got through them.”

Ensign Murphy (science) was candy for the eyes, all right. That part of his reputation was well-earned. But, five minutes on a social basis with him, and all but the shallowest of women would be heading for the door. Jor didn’t have that luxury right now given that she and Tabor were stuck with the man on a very important assignment – perhaps the most critical project she’d been set to work on in all her time on the ship.

Murphy was in charge of packing up the scientific equipment that Janeway would need to keep researching the virus that was keeping her and Chakotay bound to the planet below. From a list the Doctor had compiled and Tuvok had signed off on, Murphy checked off a protein analyser, a DNA resequencer, petri dishes, test tubes, reagents. Not only did he do this aloud, reading the list on his PADD for Jor and Tabor to hear, but he added a commentary, describing how Janeway would use each piece of kit. Not having any formal, in depth medical or microbiological training, most of Murphy’s ramblings went right over Jor and Tabor’s heads. Except when Murphy interjected a comment about Tuvok’s attitude, or the Doctor’s shortcomings, or how Janeway and Chakotay would adapt to their new life, marooned.

When the science officer left to pick up some delicate samples from sickbay, Jor heaved a sigh of relief, chuckling when Tabor set down what he was carrying to rub his ears in a theatrical manner.

She and Tabor had been tasked with preparing the items that Chakotay and Janeway would need to live day-to-day on the planet: Weapons, tricorders, PADDs. Flat-packed furniture, a replicator, clothing. Tuvok had personally filled a crate with personal items from the Captain’s and Commander’s quarters. That one was already sealed.

As well as those smaller items, _Voyager_ ’s soon-to-be-former command team required a structure to live in. A standard Starfleet two-person modular shelter had been taken out of storage. Tabor was examining one of the beige and grey pieces that would form part of the roof. “What does this remind you of?” he asked her, smiling fondly as he picked up another piece – an internal partition section judging by its thinner profile. “You know,” he added, before she could answer his rhetorical question, “it would be quicker if you and I assembled this shelter. Then we could beam it down intact. We could build this with our eyes shut. I doubt we’d even need the instruction manual.”

“But, I think Chakotay might like something to keep him occupied down there. It’ll give him something constructive to do. No pun intended.”

“And I suppose he could get the bulk of it built in one day. At least the sleeping area done before nightfall.”

Returning to Tabor’s earlier question, Jor sealed up the crate she’d been checking through, pulled herself onto her feet and stepped over to his position. Running her fingers over the section of wall that he still turned over in his hands, she felt that same pang of nostalgia that she’d recognised in his expression. “The interior wall sections for the housing blocks on Salva IV were typically a couple of centimetres thicker than this,” she remarked.

Tabor nodded. “This is high-grade duraglass. A much better insulator of heat than that plasterboard we had to work with. More soundproof too.”

“And these pieces slot together without much of a need for heavy tools by the looks of it. Like the model construction kits we had as kids.” She cursed under her breath as that last sentence escaped her lips. “Sorry. I know you didn’t have fancy toys back on Bajor.”

He waved off her apology. “It’s all right. You didn’t either, really, did you? Not compared to kids in the Federation.”

“Maybe not electronic gadgets. But we always had plenty of good things to keep us entertained.” And she smiled as she absorbed the fact that she was thinking back on that aspect of her life and not feeling the pain that had frequently accompanied those happy memories since the attack – the pain that those times were gone forever, as were the people who had shared them with her.

Staring at her for a moment, Tabor then smiled too. Jor stepped away to let him set the piece of the shelter he’d been examining back into its place in the cargo crate.

“This shelter is only single storey. So, they won’t need any mechanical aids or scaffolding to add an upper level.”

“I haven’t seen any hard hats,” Jor said mischievously, knowing the reaction that her comment would invoke in him, feeling that twinge of nostalgia again.

“What a shame,” Tabor threw back, smirking, “or you’d make me try one on, wouldn’t you?”

Mirroring his look, Jor then had to remind herself of the solemnity of what they were actually doing down there in the cargo bay. It wasn’t supposed to be a trip down memory lane, reminiscing about those happy months they’d spent working construction on Salva IV. But, with Murphy having left them for a while and Tabor in a reflective mood, it was difficult not to be drawn into such musings. Nevertheless, she made a concerted effort to school her features into a more appropriate, neutral expression. They were packing two people’s futures into these crates.

But that neutral façade was difficult to maintain when, as she continued packing smaller cases into larger crates, Jor allowed the memory of her first meeting with Tabor come to the forefront of her mind.

At the time, he’d been wearing one of the ubiquitous yellow hard hats that builders and engineers on every frontier planet Jor had visited since seemed to favour. But that first meeting had occurred not on a construction site, but in the lobby of the administration centre of Salva IV’s main settlement. Completely flustered by the fact that the man bidding her welcome and asking if he could direct her someplace wasn’t human, she’d floundered for something appropriate to say, and, before she could get her brain into gear, she’d heard herself asking him, a little sarcastically, whether she should be worried about something falling down on her head there in the nicely furnished entrance hall. Thankfully, Tabor had seen the funny side. Later, Jor had been able to laugh about it too.  

“You wore that hard hat all the time,” she called across the cargo bay to where he was standing still now, reading from a PADD.  

“I treasured that hat. I was so amazed at having access to safety equipment after how things had been back on Bajor,” Tabor replied. Knowing that Jor already knew the reason he’d been so attached to the hat, his tone was wistful, rather than explanatory. “To think I even took it into the Maquis with us, kept it on the _Val Jean_ , and then it travels all the way to the Delta Quadrant only to go up in smoke with that ship.”

“It did come in handy that night after Chell used contaminated meat in the curry and…” Jor had to pause then as the cargo bay doors swished open and Ensign Murphy returned, this time with Lieutenant Rollins in tow. Tabor’s laughter was cut off as he readied himself to report.

“Is everything ready, Ensign?” Rollins asked Tabor.

Tabor glanced over to Jor. Seeing her confident nod, he bobbed his head in turn. “Yes, sir. All good to go from our point of view.”

Rollins waited as Murphy finished packing and sealing one final case of biological specimens. “All this stuff,” Rollins said, taking in the volume of material that would be transported to the surface. “I just hope it means they’ll have everything they need to survive down there. Alone.”

Murphy added the last case onto the stack of science equipment and stood back from it, surveying the scale of the equipment pile for himself. Rollins took the PADD that Tabor handed over to him, scrolled through the data on the small screen and hit his comm badge. “Rollins to Tuvok, we’re ready to transport all the survival equipment down to the surface now.”

Not a second later, and Tuvok’s cheerless Vulcan tones came through over the audio link. _“Very well, Mr. Rollins. Please standby.”_

Perhaps Tuvok contacted the Captain then to inform her to expect the equipment momentarily. Whatever the case, the transporter operator on shift must have been given the instruction to lock on to the crates because they promptly began to dematerialise and in a couple of seconds they were gone.

“I still can’t quite believe that this is really going to happen,” Jor said, mainly directing the comment at Tabor, but for the other men to hear also. “That we’re about to leave them behind ... I keep thinking something must happen to fix things. To enable them to leave this place.”

“The Captain’s a very capable scientist,” Rollins contributed. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she comes up with a cure herself.”

“But _Voyager_ could be thousands of light years ahead by the time she does,” Tabor said grimly. “With respect, Lieutenant, it might be better not to get raised hopes.”

“Although, going back to what Yosa was saying at lunchtime, _Voyager_ makes so many stops that there’s a chance Chakotay and the Captain could catch up in the shuttle that’s been sent down to them,” Jor pointed out. “At least a chance that they could get near enough to make subspace contact with us and we could turn around and get them.”

“I sure hope so,” said Murphy, who’d been oddly quiet since his return with Rollins.

One thing was for certain, Tuvok was not going to be a captain in the mould of Janeway. Jor had the unkind, but ironically logical thought that the late Tuvix would have been better suited to the role. However, Neelix, in his role of morale officer, was needed more now than ever, and, besides, Jor would never wish harm on the Talaxian – or Tuvok, for that matter. She hoped that, as Tuvok’s captaincy ensued, her concern towards the Vulcan’s well-being would not be brought to an end.

###

Dismissed by Rollins back to their rostered duty stations in engineering, Tabor and Jor made their way out to the turbolift, leaving Rollins to do whatever it was he did – form-filling and other administration, Tabor supposed. Murphy trailed the two of them out of the cargo bay, but then headed off down the corridor in the opposite direction. Jor let out a long sigh. Tabor echoed it. He wasn’t in any desperate hurry to get back to engineering where the mood would be even more sombre now that this latest development in the Janeway-Chakotay-insect-bite-virus saga had come to pass. No doubt he and Jor would be assailed with questions when they got to their workstations. While they weren’t dragging their feet, Tabor had set a deliberately slow pace, and Jor didn’t hurry him.

“So, do you think Tuvok will make some kind of ship-wide announcement before we break orbit?” she asked.

“I hope so,” Tabor said. “It won’t help his popularity any if he doesn’t – if the likes of us only realise we’re leaving the system when we see the warp core coming online. I actually feel a little sorry for him.”

Jor stopped in her tracks, Tabor naturally drawing to a halt beside her. “I do too,” Jor said. “He has such a thankless task ahead of him. And it’s made worse by the loyalty that both Chakotay and Janeway have from the crew. If they weren’t so popular, it would be easier to leave them, wouldn’t it?”

Tabor nodded. “It would.”

Even though it had been the Captain’s decision to strand _Voyager_ in the Delta Quadrant, Janeway was, fourteen months on, admired and well-liked by almost all of the Starfleet crew. She had also won over many of the Maquis, in part, thanks to the way she’d extended the same privileges to them as her original crewmembers expected. Similarly, Chakotay was held in high regard by – and had the firm loyalty of – the Maquis, and the majority of the non-Maquis had grown to approve of him also. Crew morale had been in steady decline ever since Chakotay and Janeway had entered those stasis pods. The command team’s absence had had a serious impact on efficiency for that matter, as well. People were making silly mistakes during basic tasks.

Tabor realised that he stood out from most of the rest of the crew – even from Jor, to some extent – in that, although he felt a sadness at the thought of _Voyager_ continuing on her journey without Chakotay and the Captain, he wasn’t experiencing a strong sense of loss. He’d never been drawn to Chakotay in the way that B’Elanna or Hogan or Ayala were. And, although Tabor didn’t dislike Janeway, he hadn’t warmed to her as some of the other Maquis had. It was a good thing that he could be objective about the situation. It meant that he could be a better support to the others. And, as with most bad situations, something good had come of it already. It might be selfish to think that way, but Tabor was always glad of any opportunity to share a joke with Jor. He smiled inwardly, thinking back to that safety hat he’d treasured. If there was one material possession he would have liked to have salvaged from the _Val Jean_ , then that hat would have been it.

As the silence fell between them – not uncomfortably – Jor set off again, and Tabor kept stride with her.

Their first meeting had been burned into his memory. She’d seemed broken, yet determined. Startled by the fact that he wasn’t human – that had been clear from the inordinate amount of attention she’d given to the bridge of his nose – but not intimidated by it. She’d intrigued him; after only a few minutes making polite conversation, he’d seen in her someone with whom he could identify, even though, on the surface, their backgrounds were so different.

She’d been assigned a job with his workgroup. He’d offered to show her around the main settlement and the outlying communities in their free time. Within weeks, they’d been sharing their pasts in detail, each providing the other with a listening ear. She’d made it clear that she was only interested in socialising with him on a basis of friendship. But, from that point on, he’d stopped looking at other women – or maybe he’d still _looked_ , but with no intentions of pursuing any of them. Later, during their time in the Maquis, when he’d overindulged in Romulan ale and engaged in a misguided, drunken fumble with a Bajoran spaceport technician on Nivoch, he’d felt guilty about it for months. He still regretted it now.

Jor knew what he’d done. She’d nursed him through his hangover the next morning, and he’d felt obliged to tell her, minus the most salient details, of his activities the previous evening. Despite her showing no obvious unhappiness that he’d had such an encounter – beyond reproaching him that in his inebriated state he might have fallen and injured himself or worse – Tabor had made a point of never getting drunk like that again. With his wits always about him, he’d left the women at the spaceports for the likes of Bendera and Jarvin from that point on.

He did wonder how things might have developed if he and Jor had been able to stay on Salva IV. If the Cardassians had stayed away. As Jor preceded him into the waiting turbolift and called for deck eleven, Tabor turned to her, waiting to lock eyes with her before he posed the question, “What do you think we’d be doing now if we were still on Salva IV?”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “If we’d not been evicted and there was peace along the border?” she asked slowly.

As the lift doors closed and it started to move, Tabor nodded, clarifying, “Assuming that somehow the Federation and the Cardassians made some new deal, perhaps. Or, for whatever reason, we’d been able to stay there without any threat to our safety.”

“The construction work might have slowed down once all the facilities were in place,” Jor reasoned.

“But, more settlers might have arrived if there was peace in the region,” Tabor countered. “More infrastructure might have been required.”

“I don’t know if I’d have wanted to stay doing that job forever, though.”

“As the colony’s population expanded, there’d have been more opportunities in other lines of work.”

Lowering her gaze, Jor leaned back against the turbolift wall. “Maybe, eventually, I’d have gone back to flying,” she said, flicking her eyes up again to meet his before resuming her stare into the air.

He knew that he was pushing, but Tabor went on anyway: “Would you have gone home, do you think? If Orcadia had also been safe then from the Cardassians.”

Jor took a moment to think on that, then she shrugged, looking up as she did so. “I might have. Eventually. Just to visit. But, then again, maybe not. Not with my closest family gone. And, well…”

“And?” Tabor urged, when she failed to continue.

With the turbolift reaching its destination and a half dozen gloomy engineers waiting when the doors slid open, Jor didn’t respond to his prompt.

Smiling tightly, she led him out into the bustling corridor, making haste towards engineering, ending their conversation there, but saying, “I’ll tell you afterwards.”

Once their information-hungry colleagues surrounded them, Tabor had very little time to wonder about what Jor might later reveal.

###

Considering that Tom Paris was filling his favourite seat in Sandrine’s, the glum expression he wore looked out of place. Tabor had never seen Tom look so despondent. “I wish I hadn’t been at the conn when we broke orbit,” Tom told those sharing the table. “I feel like, in a way, I’m responsible for us turning our backs on them, even though I was only following Tuvok’s order and he was following the Captain’s. Our former Captain’s.” Pausing to take a drink from his glass, he added once he’d swallowed, “She’ll always be the Captain to me.”

Beside Tom, Harry Kim nodded, clapping his friend on the shoulder. “And to me.” Then, with a polite yet hollow smile to Tabor and Jor, the young ops officer picked up his empty glass and pushed back in his chair. “I feel exhausted; I’m going to bed. Night.”

Tom, Jor, and Tabor himself all returned the sentiment as Kim rose – Tabor with the most enthusiasm, and he wasn’t feeling exactly cheery.

“So, with Tuvok now our captain, does that make you our new first officer?” Jor asked Tom.

“Technically,” Tom responded with a grimace, contributing nothing further, sipping from his beer instead.

It heartened Tabor to see his closest friend now on good terms with Paris, a man whose friendship Tabor had started to value over the last few months. Not that they had a huge amount in common aside from a fondness for quality literature, but Tabor appreciated Tom’s sense of humour, and lately they’d been discussing holoprogramming, a subject that Tabor had had very little interest in until Tom had explained just how much fun it could be.

When, a couple of hours earlier, Tabor and Jor had walked into Sandrine’s and Tom had waved them over to the table he shared with Kim, Tabor’s initial, suppressed reaction had been of regret. As much as Tabor liked Paris, he would have been happiest spending the evening alone with Jor; he wanted to continue their truncated conversation from earlier. When she’d suggested they visit Sandrine’s instead of holing up in quarters, Tabor hadn’t argued. But he’d hoped that, in a quiet corner of the bar, they’d be able to talk privately. Spending the evening with Tom and Harry ruled out that opportunity. But, watching Jor and Tom on civil, cautiously amiable terms, had made that talk with Jor worth waiting for. Despite their glumness, both Tom and Harry had been good company. Getting to know Harry better had been pleasant, the young man telling them about his youth and his time at the Academy.

Tabor wondered how much advice Tuvok, a middle-aged Vulcan with years of a Starfleet career behind him, would be prepared to take from Tom, who, despite reforming himself on _Voyager_ , had such a chequered past. It was also part of a first officer’s role to prepare duty rosters and perform crew evaluations. But would Tuvok be prepared to delegate such important tasks to Tom? Would Tuvok bring onto the senior staff any of the others who held the rank of lieutenant in the ship’s various departments? Rollins, Baxter, Andrews?

And who was now – technically – next down the chain of command? Surely not Harry Kim, the next ranking bridge officer, two years – less than two years – out of the Academy? Ayala had been ‘promoted’ to acting security chief and he had the provisional rank of a lieutenant. But, Ayala had no real command experience beyond leading small strike teams in the Maquis. Then there was B’Elanna: a senior officer and another provisional lieutenant. Tabor had no doubt that B’Elanna had the intellect to command a starship. Hell, she had the intellect to command a fleet. But he wasn’t sure he wanted to see that in practice…

Setting his glass down on the table, Paris glanced around the holographic bar, chewing thoughtfully on his lip as he often did. “I shouldn’t stay too long either. If I am – unofficially – second-in-command now, then I want to be plenty early for my shift tomorrow.”  

When Paris had taken his leave, Tabor didn’t waste any time in asking Jor if they could resume their earlier discussion. They’d been talking hypotheticals, he reminded her. She’d been about to offer an additional reason for not returning to her homeworld.  

At his question, she studied the backs of her hands for a long moment, before nodding to herself and glancing back up. Her focus seemed drawn to something over Tabor’s shoulder, but, when she spoke, it was indeed to expand on her earlier answer. “You wouldn’t have been able to come with me if I’d gone back home,” she said quietly. “Not even to tag along on a visit.”

He knew that. Everyone who lived along the Federation-Cardassian border had heard of the colony founded by a xenophobic faction of humans two generations ago. And she’d told him just how insular the general population was back at home, that narrow-minded attitude encouraged by the colony’s ruling council of elders. Non-humans weren’t allowed beyond the confines of the reception area at the spaceport, where, occasionally, alien traders would meet with local merchants to broker deals on grain, medicines, and so on.

“I could have hidden my nose, maybe gone at it experimentally with a dermal regenerator,” Tabor suggested lightly, regretting the joke as soon as it had tripped off his tongue, Jor’s silence standing for her answer. “Sorry,” he murmured.

Jor had never been prejudiced against non-humans. Tabor found that quite remarkable given her upbringing, let alone the fact that the first alien she’d come into contact with had been intending to torture her to death, a fate she’d only escaped by accident. During one of their early conversations, Jor had explained to Tabor that she’d always had access to books and video files on human history up to, and including, the birth of the Federation. Newsfeeds from Earth and other Federation member planets were received by the colony’s subspace transceiver and available for download by any colonist who wished to know what was going on elsewhere in the Quadrant. Despite the colony’s policy of xenophobia, those sources of knowledge had always been uncensored, and, by the time Jor was an adult, she’d made up her mind for herself that not every alien race should be feared, mistrusted, or seen as a damaging influence. She’d told Tabor that she’d had difficulty understanding why her compatriots didn’t share her enlightened opinions, but most of them ignored any news from the outside world. Her parents had asserted that, while hating aliens simply because they were different was wrong, there was nothing bigoted about wanting to live apart from them.

With Jor still staring off over his shoulder, Tabor swivelled in his seat to observe the activity in the part of the bar that lay behind him. Ensign Lang from security – a gossip to rival Henley – was in animated discussion with Nicoletti. By the pool table, the hologram, Sandrine, was consoling a tearful Golwat.

“That’s pretty much all I was going to finish saying earlier,” Jor said then, causing Tabor to whip his head back around to face her once more. “That … I don’t know if, on principle, I could have gone back to Orcadia even for a day with their attitude to outsiders. And home shouldn’t be a place, should it? It should be wherever family are. Or good friends. That planet ceased to be my home that day of the attack. Home for me then became first Salva IV, then wherever we were in the Maquis. And now, it’s on _Voyager_.”

Her voice becoming hoarse, she paused to take a drink. Tabor held back from interrupting, studying her face, wanting to be sure she’d said all she had to say. She hadn’t, continuing, “I know we call the Alpha Quadrant home – we talk about going ‘home’. And, I want us to get back to familiar space. I want to see our friends again. Get back to the fight if we’re still needed and if were not in jail. And, I especially want us to get back for people like Ayala and Carey and Yosa – for everyone who has people to get home to. Definitely. But, I’d rather spend the rest of my life on _Voyager_ with friends, than be on a planet full of strangers in the Alpha Quadrant.” Stopping there with finality, she looked him squarely in the eye, her expression inviting his response.

“Me too. Definitely,” he said quickly. As much as he’d like to see Bajor again one day, in the hope that his homeworld would be still free and once again thriving, he knew that the experience would be empty unless he had someone to share it with.

Her, specifically.

###

“What the hell am I supposed to do with this? I asked for a resonator coil not a phase coil resonator.”

Hearing Tabor bear the brunt of B’Elanna’s temper, Jor felt a spike of anger herself. Especially when she heard Tabor respectfully tell the Chief that he was sorry, but that he was certain she’d asked for the latter. Jor was sure she’d heard B’Elanna ask for the resonator as well, though they were very similar-sounding objects. It wasn’t like Tabor to make mistakes, and his concentration seemed to be far less affected than most of the crew by the loss of Chakotay and Janeway.

“Why would I want a phase coil resonator?” B’Elanna snapped. “Can’t you see what I’m trying to do here?”

“I’ll get the coil right away,” Tabor said, beating a fast retreat from B’Elanna’s location near the warp core to an equipment locker on the other side of main engineering.

Jor could almost hear him gritting his teeth.

There was no telling what the specific trigger for B’Elanna’s rage had been today, but somebody had done something to start the ball rolling. Yesterday, it had been Nicoletti for bringing her oboe to work and leaving it hanging off the edge of a workstation where it had fallen into a vat of thorium grease. The day before that, it had been Dalby again for misplacing the PADD with B’Elanna’s shield generator maintenance report for Tuvok on it. One day at the beginning of last week, it had been the lack of a farewell message from Chakotay to go along with the Captain’s - the former Captain’s. B’Elanna couldn’t understand why Chakotay would fail to wish his former comrades goodbye. How much effort would it have taken him to make a twenty second audio transmission?

Ensign Lang hadn’t helped defuse the tension, sweeping through engineering on an unannounced health and safety inspection for Tuvok, stopping to chat at every workstation – to gossip, more than chat. B’Elanna had already told the woman to get out of her way twice in the last hour. No doubt Tuvok would hear of Lang’s behaviour the next time B’Elanna spoke to him.

“They’re stuck there, just the two of them,” Lang was now telling Golwat, leaning back leisurely against a bulkhead as she did so, “and they can’t spend all their time working on finding a cure for the virus or exploring their new surroundings. I’m telling you, Golwat, if they haven’t hooked up already, then they will do pretty damn soon. If it were me marooned with Commander Chakotay, then I wouldn’t be playing hard to get, if you know what I mean.”

Thankfully, Golwat did know what Lang meant, nodding her blue head enthusiastically and saving Jor’s ears from having to listen to any further explanation on that subject. What exactly did all these women see in Chakotay?

At Jor’s side, Dalby snickered. They were supposed to be working together in phaser maintenance where there was an ongoing problem with the pre-fire chamber temperature. But B’Elanna had called them back to main engineering when she’d found out about the inspection. At the speed Lang was getting through the department with her PADD of checklists, Jor and Dalby would have every power outlet, emergency medkit, and manual fire extinguisher safety checked before Lang could reach and assess them. B’Elanna didn’t want an ear bashing from Tuvok over some box that couldn’t be ticked on a form. She knew that Jor and Dalby could be discreet in their work, unlike some of the Starfleet engineers who would baulk at being asked to perform such an underhand task. As it so happened, everything that the pair had looked at so far was in perfect order, right down to the alphabetical arrangement of the hyposprays lined up in the medkits.

A couple of long hours later, they were sent off on their break, finding Tabor already slumped over a coffee and a sandwich at their regular table in the mess hall. Jor left Dalby at the galley counter, moving immediately to slide into the seat at Tabor’s side.

“Tough morning,” she commiserated, noting that the coffee was black and the sandwich filled with that gunky brown paste that Tabor had been put onto by Tom Paris. A liquid pick-me-up and comfort food.

Smiling wanly, Tabor nodded. “Not the best,” he said, keeping his voice low, but with a steadily increasing tone of irritation. “Remember when Ensign Murphy – science Murphy – said that Tuvok in charge would be a nightmare? I don’t like people throwing that word around, as you know. So, I had it in mind that it was a poor description for what we were in for. But, we never had this many drills and inspections with Janeway in charge. And Tuvok needs to realise that they’re getting in the way of the smooth running of the ship. At least, they are in engineering. And really not helping with people’s spirits.”

“Did you manage to clear the air with B’Elanna?”

“Hey, I wasn’t at fault there. She asked me for a phase coil resonator.”

Jor laid her hand on his, bidding him pause. “I know. I just wondered if she’d apologised for losing her cool.”

“No. But I’m not taking it personally. She’s probably forgotten it was even me that she snapped at.”

Releasing Tabor’s hand so that he could easily access his mug again, Jor heaved a sigh. “And she’s been lecturing Swinn about her poor performance, while saying that she’s not affected herself.”

“Yes, well…” He trailed off, gesturing to the empty space in front of Jor on the table. “Hey, aren’t you having anything to eat? The hair pasta looks good today.”

She lifted an eyebrow at the expression he turned on her. His poker face needed some work. “I’ll take your word for it,” she said, rising and heading for the replicator.

Dalby had joined Tabor at the table by the time Jor had ordered and collected a chicken salad. Not having grown up with replicated food, there was still a novelty factor for her in using the technology. Some of the dishes that materialised in the output slot were as good, if not tastier, than the real thing. The ‘chicken’, on the other hand, was mediocre, but, as _Voyager_ wasn’t likely to run into any of the Terran fowl for decades – and even then, many in the Federation were squeamish these days about consuming real meat, so chickens were often only kept as pets – the replicated version had to do.

Somehow, despite the fact that she’d still been in engineering when Jor and Dalby had left there, Ensign Lang was already holding court on the other side of the room with Henley, Baytart, and a couple of security personnel that Jor could never remember the names of listening intently to her every word.

By contrast, Jor’s lunch with Tabor and Dalby passed in companionable silence, until, giving into the urge to speculate, Jor spoke.

“Do you really think what Lang said to Golwat is likely?” she asked Dalby, disregarding, for a moment, the fact that Tabor had been elsewhere when Lang and Golwat’s conversation had occurred.

Dalby peered at her over his coffee. “About Chakotay and Janeway ‘hooking up’?” he specified, negating the need for Jor to fill Tabor in.

“Yes. I get that they have things in common and they seem to enjoy each other’s company. But, I don’t know. I can’t really picture them together.”

Beating Tabor to it by a millisecond, Dalby snorted a laugh. “I don’t want to picture them together,” he said dryly. “It would put me off my lunch.”

Jor rolled her eyes, stretching out to rap Dalby on the arm and nudging Tabor with her elbow. “You both know what I mean.”

Dalby nodded, chuckling openly now even as his eyes grew thoughtful. “Their situation does remind me of that saying that Sahreen used to throw about from time to time back on the _Val Jean_. Like when Henley used to get all … you know.” He glanced about furtively, lowering his voice to a whisper before adding, “And that time when B’Elanna and –”

“We promised to forget about that and never to mention it,” Tabor broke in, frowning fiercely.

Jor tensed up herself. What the hell was Dalby thinking in dredging that up? B’Elanna would fry him over the warp core if she could hear him.

“Well, anyway,” Dalby continued, raising a palm in compliance, “as I was saying, Sahreen used to say something like … ‘most of the unhappiness in the Galaxy is caused by people searching out love.’ Or that’s the gist of it. Remember?”

“You mean: ‘The search for unity with another is the source of much of the Galaxy’s unhappiness’,” Tabor stated fluently.

“That’s the one,” Jor interjected. “I never knew if he came up with it himself or if he was quoting someone historical.” The saying had stuck in her mind too. Because if their old Maquis comrade Sahreen had made the effort to speak, then it was because he’d had something worth saying – worth listening to. Jor had never necessarily believed the adage to be true. It seemed … defeatist. But Sahreen had obviously put some stock in it.

“I wish I’d asked him about it,” Tabor added. “But to get more than a dozen consecutive words out of him would send me into a shock.”

“Sahreen lives like a Tabard monk,” Dalby pointed out. “So, it could be an original. But, what I’m getting at is that Chakotay and Janeway are stuck on that planet forever, just the two of them, so they’ll never need to do any searching for someone to … pair up with. It’s one less thing to worry about in life, don’t you think?”

“One less thing to worry about?”

Looking up from her meal, the train of thought that had begun to form after Dalby’s pronouncement impeded, Jor spied Neelix on a direct approach to their table, a tray of cupcakes covered in fluorescent blue icing balanced between his hands.

“As morale officer, I make it my business to monitor all worrisome issues on this ship,” the Talaxian continued. “Have I missed something?”

“What are those?” Tabor asked him, squinting at the ‘eye-watering’ desserts.

“Didn’t you watch my morning broadcast today, Ensign?” Neelix gently reproached. “It’s Golwat’s birthday.”

Jor managed to skulk away back to the replicator at that point, hoping that by the time she returned to the table, Neelix would have moved on. If the cakes were as indigestible as the one he’d made last week to celebrate Lieutenant Fernandez’s ten years of Starfleet service, then Jor wasn’t going to partake, birthday or no birthday.

Beginning to ponder what Dalby had been saying – surprised by the depth of his thinking and ashamed at herself for not giving him more credit – Jor replicated a hot chocolate (her own comfort food) and, after stopping for a quick chat with Hogan at the counter, found herself back at Tabor’s side. Neelix had vanished.

“He’s taking one of those cakes to Suder,” Dalby hissed, his face and neck having now turned a shade of red. “Can you believe that?”

Thinking on it for a moment, Jor decided that yes, she could. “Neelix delivers meals to Suder all the time,” she said, hoping that would calm rather than inflame Dalby’s outrage.

“But cake’s not a meal, it’s a luxury.”

“I’d say one of Neelix’s cakes is too much punishment even for Suder, wouldn’t you?”

Dalby dropped his utensils onto his plate with a clatter. “You really think it’s funny? Huh? After what he did to Darwin?”

“Of course I don’t,” Jor bristled, wishing that she could turn the time back five seconds and keep her mouth shut, feeling Tabor straighten and sit forward to her right, his hand coming to rest on hers.

“Look, Ken,” Tabor said, calm but insistent. “Neelix is the forgiving type. Whether we agree or not, the Captains – both Janeway and Tuvok – must have agreed that Suder could have whatever food Neelix was serving to the rest of us. And, where Neelix has the discretion to perhaps include or exclude certain dishes, well, he’ll naturally go down the sympathetic route. He’d feel mean holding back what he calls party food.”

“I’d make Suder eat bread and water for the rest of his days,” Dalby snapped back, still firing an intimidating glare Jor’s way. At least it would have been intimidating if she hadn’t witnessed so many of his rages in the past. She shouldn’t have let him get to her at all, but he’d invoked Darwin’s name. Then again, maybe she’d had it coming. Her comment hadn’t been exactly sensitive. Her concentration had lain with other matters.

Deciding that it might be best to take herself away and give Dalby time enough to cool off before they had to resume working together, Jor gently extricated her hand from beneath Tabor’s, regretting that it was necessary to do so. Tabor, for his part, glanced aside, eyes narrowing.

“I’m going for a walk,” Jor explained levelly, picking up her hot drink with her already warmed hand and pushing to her feet. “I’ll see you later,” she directed to Dalby, before extending by a look an invitation to Tabor to join her if he so wished.

His meal finished, he took the hint, rising and hurriedly collecting his tray. “I’ll come with you.”

###

“Of everyone on this ship that could’ve had the … notoriety of being the first that Tuvok would relieve of duty,” Tabor mused. “I’d never have imagined that it would be Harry Kim.”

Comfortably settled beside him in her quarters, on the sofa that she still found a welcome extravagance, Jor nodded her agreement. “Me neither. It is kind of crazy.”

“Though it was bound to happen to someone sooner or later. A quarter of the crew must be on report or have been at some point in the last six weeks.”

It didn’t help that, aside from the general low morale from losing Janeway and Chakotay and adjusting to a Vulcan in command, there’d been no shore leave since _Voyager_ had stopped at that bug-ridden planet six weeks ago. Until today, they’d encountered no other ships in the six weeks, not even on long-range sensors. There’d been nothing to break up the monotony of open space. The psychological effects of long space voyages were well known. Without the holodecks there’d likely have been even more trouble from disgruntled crewmembers getting antsy than there had been. Though at least _Voyager_ wasn’t getting fired at by the Kazon or the Vidiians. That was something to be grateful for.

“I heard Megan Delaney got into trouble this morning,” Jor said. “She was thirty seconds late to her duty shift.”

“But how did Tuvok know that?” Tabor asked, turning a frown towards her.

“A random departmental inspection. Bad luck on her part. I hear she’s usually the more punctual of the twins.”

“I’m glad I’ve always been able to keep my nose out of trouble.”

Jor rolled her eyes at Tabor’s choice of words and the smirk that accompanied them. “So far. But I don’t imagine even you or I could last another sixty-eight years under Tuvok’s command without doing something he took exception to.”

Tabor nodded. “It makes me realise how much leeway Chakotay and Janeway gave us all when it came to the little things. Like chatting while we’re on duty as long as our work wasn’t affected. Or not having our boots so shiny that we can see our reflections in them.”

Gerron had found himself scrubbing plasma conduits for breaking that particular rule prompting Jor to spend an extra five minutes with a brush and polish every day since. Luckily the young Bajoran had toughened up since the last time Tuvok had pulled him up for scuffed boots. Gerron had actually seen the funny side of it, saying that it would make an interesting entry in his journal.

Dalby’s record had taken a knock as well. Having overslept before a shift, the missed alarm leaving him no time to shave, he’d been cited by Tuvok for not adhering to the personal grooming regulations. Dalby’s excuse that he’d decided that very morning to start growing a full beard didn’t cut it with the Vulcan.  

“You know, you could do with a haircut,” Jor said, giving into the impulse to reach out and ruffle the thick hair at the back of Tabor’s head. He didn’t seem to mind. Quite the contrary, in fact. The gentle sigh he released was definitely not of irritation. Encouraged by that, she let her fingers sink in deeper. “Another couple of millimetres and Tuvok will be on your case like he was with Dalby.”

“Yeah, I guess it is getting a little unruly,” Tabor agreed, reaching up to feel for himself, his hand making contact with hers and lingering there, just as his eyes found hers and did likewise.

Tabor’s hair could probably grow a full centimetre more before Tuvok started to fret about it.

“Do you want me to fetch some scissors?” she asked, unable to bear the weight of his silent stare any longer.

“Oh, no, that’s OK,” he said quickly, drawing his hand back to his side. “It can wait until I can run the holographic barber program on the holodeck.”

She narrowed her eyes and found that, before realising it, she had snatched back her own hand. “But, I’ve cut your hair before. When we didn’t have access to holodecks.”

“Yes, but …” Swallowing hard, he ran a hand back up across his scalp, letting his fingers come to rest on his ear. “I was desperate. And … that second time, you left one side shorter than the other.”

“I did not, did I?”

“Chell had to even it up for me.”

“Seriously?” She tried to recall the particular occasion. It hadn’t been on the _Val Jean._ It been during the construction of the base at Athos IV. They’d been stuck there for weeks.

“Yes. Seriously,” Tabor confirmed. “I can’t believe Chell never let that slip. I told him not to mention it, but you know what he’s like.”

Despite having learned a long while back that Bolians did have a seemingly natural gift for hairdressing, the image of Chell tidying up a barbering mistake that she, a human with a full head of hair, had made, was just too bizarre to visualise. Seeing the funny side, Jor smiled. Catching her eye again, Tabor grinned back.

“We did have some good times back then,” she said, holding his gaze.

“We still do, don’t we?”

She reached out for his hand, took it in her own and squeezed gently. “Yes. We do.”

“And … I want us to have more good times,” he said slowly, squeezing her hand back and sending what felt like a rush of heat up her arm. Though his next words counteracted that effect somewhat. “That’s why I agree with Tuvok and I disagree with Harry, Hogan and the others about contacting that Vidiian convoy. I don’t want us to court unnecessary danger.”

This was a discussion they’d started earlier today in engineering. On hearing about Harry Kim’s confrontation with Tuvok and the reason for it, most of the engineering staff had sprung to the young ensign’s defence. Vorik had been one, predictable exception. Tabor, another.

Hogan and Swinn were almost ready to stage a mutiny having heard of Harry’s treatment. B’Elanna seemed quietly supportive of Harry too. Jor saw their logic: although Janeway had expressly forbidden Tuvok from contacting the Vidiians for help, it wasn’t as if _Voyager_ had gone out of her way to come into the path of the Vidiian ships. It was surely too good an opportunity to ignore if there was even a chance that Chakotay and Janeway could be rescued.

“But, we didn’t leave our people behind in the Maquis,” Jor said, frustrated at this change in topic. She’d have been more than willing to forget about the disagreement in engineering. While she agreed with the pro-contact faction, she wasn’t about to sign up for anything seditious. And Tabor was quite entitled to his opinion even if she didn’t share it. As far as Jor was concerned, they had no need to talk about the matter further. Especially not right now.

“There were times when leaving people was necessary,” Tabor countered, after a moment.

“Dead people. Bodies. Not the living.” And the Maquis had hated to have to leave those knowing what the Cardassians might do with them. Recoverable remains had always been collected for respectful disposal.

“OK, but there were times when we went on missions knowing that, if things had gone awry, Chakotay wouldn’t have sent anyone to our rescue. Look, the Vidiians…” With a gentle shake of his head, the hand that had rested on his ear now falling into his lap, Tabor drew a long breath. “Remember what they did to B’Elanna. To Neelix. To that other _Voyager_. If we – one ship – approached their convoy and something went wrong, they’d have us all marked for organ processing in an instant. How can it be worth risking the lives of one hundred and fifty people to help two? Regardless of who they are.”

“So, we just leave them?”

“It’s for the good of the many.”

Jor stiffened, not caring for that logic at all. “So was the treaty of 2370,” she slung back.

He flinched at that, his grip on her hand loosening though neither of them let go completely. “That’s hardly a fair comparison.”

“Maybe not,” she conceded, deciding on the spur of that moment to instead press on with, “But, if it were me left behind on that planet would you still feel the same?”

“That’s not relevant,” he said, without hesitation, tenderly wrapping his fingers around her hand once more.

“Not relevant?” she prompted, unable to relate his words to the manner in which he was touching her.

Shuffling around to face her squarely, he turned that same intense look on her that he had those several weeks ago in his quarters. “If it were you who’d got infected with that virus and had to stay behind, then I’d have insisted on being put off the ship to stay with you.”

And that definitely wasn’t the sort of drastic action a person would be prepared take for someone they merely liked. Not even for someone they liked a great deal.

Knowing with certainty that she too would rather be stuck for the rest of her life on an alien planet in the middle of nowhere with Tabor rather than to fly away on _Voyager_ without him, her next words came easily. “And I’d have done the same for you.”

At that point, she didn’t care that it had taken a disagreement for them to get to this juncture. All that mattered was that they were there.

###

Leaning in to her, he was certain that his gesture would be welcomed. He had a sure hope that it would be reciprocated. But he hadn’t been prepared for the sheer enthusiasm of her response. Not that he objected in the slightest. Breaking, eventually, to catch a breath, he told her that he loved her. She told him the same. And, after that, there was only one way that the rest of the evening was going to go.

###

To the casual observer, nothing about them had changed. They didn’t flaunt the new aspect to their relationship. There were no public displays of affection beyond the level of which they’d always shown each other – a hand on an arm, maybe. Or a touch of elbows as they walked side by side. When their new, enhanced relationship had been mere hours old, Tabor had suggested that life would be simpler for them if they told no one that they were no longer ‘just friends’. Jor had agreed wholeheartedly, not wishing to be the next big news on _A Briefing with Neelix_. It was nobody else’s business what she and Tabor did behind the closed doors of their quarters’.

Their raised spirits weren’t out of place given the general mood on the ship now that _Voyager_ was on route to pick up Janeway and Chakotay with a cure for the virus. In three more weeks, _Voyager_ was scheduled to arrive back at the planet where the command team had been left. There was no lack of confidence that both the Captain and Commander would be found well. There hadn’t been sufficient time for them to run out of any non-replicatable supplies. Winter would not have yet set in on the continent where they had been left to make their home.

And Jor had one more reason to be cheerful. For the last hour, she’d been in the holodeck with Tom running the shuttle training simulation. The first ten minutes of the lesson had been heartpoundingly painful. But, once Tom had calmly and patiently run her through the basics of the pre-flight checks and manual launch sequences, she’d had so much technical detail to think about that the emotional consequences had taken a back seat. Tom had, tactfully, asked her nothing about her previous flight experience, though he had, to her concealed pride, commented plainly that she had a natural aptitude for piloting.

Exiting the holodeck with Tom, she found Tabor pacing in the corridor. As she greeted him with a broad grin, he returned it, his eyes gleaming. But she didn’t reach to hug him as she wanted to. Not in the corridor. Especially not with Tom there. Though, given the knowing look the pilot flashed at them, it was likely he suspected something was different. Tom Paris didn’t miss much. Jor was starting to realise just how perceptive the man was.

“So, how did it go?” Tabor asked her.

“Pretty good,” she said, thanking Tom once more before the acting second-in-command sprinted off to work on some reports Tuvok wanted by the morning. “Tom and I haven’t made any specific plans, but he’s offered to give me another lesson and I told him I’d like that sometime.”

“Do you think you might eventually ask for training on a formal basis?” Tabor pressed.

She frowned at him, a small spike of anxiety piercing her gut at that thought. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, shall we? I’m still feeling the relief that I’ve actually made it this far.” There was no way she’d ever want to switch from engineering to join the ranks of the conn officers. No way she’d ever put on a red uniform. But there were times when members of the engineering department took the helm of a shuttle. To be qualified to do so would give her more scope in her work, perhaps, eventually, the prospect of a promotion to ensign. But that would be a long-term objective.

Entering the turbolift, after waiting for the doors to close on them, she stole a swift kiss.

Tabor raised an eyebrow, smiling beneath it. “Was that for anything in particular?” he asked as she drew back from him.

They’d been very careful not to get tactile in public areas of the ship, even when there seemed to be no chance of anyone walking in on them, such as in the turbolifts.

“I’m showing my appreciation for your help in getting me to see that I can do more,” she told him. “That I should stretch myself. If we’re going to be on this ship for the rest of our productive lives, then I’ve realised I’ll need to have goals to aspire to. Just turning up to my shift every day, doing the work that’s put in front of me – pretty much the same routine maintenance – isn’t going to fulfil me in the long term.”

“It’s a healthy way to live life. To have hopes and dreams,” he replied, calling then for deck two. The mess hall.

“As you told me all those weeks ago, we have choices now that we didn’t in the Maquis.”

In the Maquis, her main aspiration had been survival: to live to fight another day. Secondary, more specific goals had been handed down from Chakotay or his deputies: shoot some Cardassians here, aid some colonists there. Maybe blow up a bunker or two.

But, as a child, she’d had hopes and dreams. For a while, she wanted to be a lifeguard. The idea of working out of an office on the beach had seemed exciting to her eight year old self. Later, realising that the beaches were off limits for nine months of every year and thus required no attending during that time, she’d decided to investigate employment that was less seasonal. Teaching, nursing, and the local police force had all been options she’d favoured at one time as she grew up.

Not having transporter technology or spacecraft, Orcadia relied on atmospheric flights to ferry people and cargo between the widely dispersed farming communities. And with the agricultural sector requiring the use of crop dusters and hydroseeders, pilots were always required and well respected. They helped keep the colonists fed.

Once she’d mentioned the idea of training for her pilot’s licence to her parents and they’d jumped on the idea with approval, there’d seemed no looking back. She’d qualified before even leaving school, found work right away through contacts of her parents, and she’d expected to remain in that job for life. She’d made her parents proud. She’d always wanted to make them proud.

The lift arrived. Stepping out with Tabor into the empty corridor, she pulled him to a halt there.

She’d never stopped to think too much that maybe that desire for parental approval had been a factor in her reticence to pursue a romantic relationship with Tabor. But, subconsciously, it had likely played a part. Though they were long dead, she still wanted to live her life in such a way that they could be proud of her. Xenophobia aside, they’d been good people. Wonderful people.

Sliding her hand from Tabor’s wrist to his elbow, Jor began hesitantly, but with a determination to let him know her thoughts before the moment had passed. “I think my parents would have really liked you,” she said, taking a hard swallow at that point. “If they could have gotten past the fact that you aren’t human.”

Unsure whether Tabor would take that as the compliment it was meant to be, she was relieved to see his solemn expression brighten into a brief but warm smile.

“I’m glad to hear you say that,” he said, his intent look returned.

With the approach of Telfer and Celes on their way to the turbolift, Jor released Tabor’s arm, saying, “Let’s get some dinner.” They could continue the discussion later now that the subject had been broached. If they wished to.

“Did you hear what Ayala wanted to leave in Chakotay’s quarters as a welcome home gift?” Tabor asked as they followed the now familiar odour of leola root stew that led into the mess hall.

“I didn’t.”

“A mosquito net and a can of insect repellent spray.”

“That’s a little insensitive, isn’t it?” Jor said, coughing away a laugh.

“B’Elanna told him he’s not to,” Tabor continued. “It would be in bad taste.”

“And speaking of bad taste…”

 


	9. Chapter 9

_Basics_

She fell into his arms. He hugged her tightly to his chest, taking a step backwards and pulling her with him, away from the Kazon thug’s drawn weapon. “Don’t provoke them,” Tabor begged, his voice merely a whisper in her ear. “Please. Just do as they say. I don’t want you hurt.”

She should have known better, but when the end of a Kazon phaser had been thrust into the small of her back, prodding her forwards, she’d lost all sense of reason for a moment. Twisting around, she’d first kicked her captor hard in the shins, then thrown a fist towards his ugly face. Unlike the kick, the Kazon had been ready for the punch, catching her fist in his empty hand, and throwing her backwards with a force that knocked her off balance. Tabor had caught her.

In all her time in the Maquis, through firefights, reconnoitres, and ship-to-ship combat, she’d never felt such a potent blend of fear and fury as she felt right now. This, more than any real experience she’d had since the Cardassian attack on her homeworld, brought back to her the memory of that day – the day she’d been rudely awakened from her ignorance of just how brutal a place the Galaxy could be. “How is this happening again?” she cried, wriggling around in Tabor’s grasp. “This can’t happen again.”

The Kazon were taking the ship. Evicting her from her home. And Seska was behind it; as if the bitch hadn’t done enough damage already.

Tabor was paler than Jor had seen him since that day when Seska had been revealed as a Cardassian spy. “Just stay close to me,” he said, shushing her. “As long as we’re together, it’ll be all right.”

But she heard the undercurrent of doubt in his assurances.

“Control your woman, Federation,” the Kazon thug spat, taking a menacing step towards them. “Or next time I won’t be so gentle with her.”

Tabor stiffened, but wisely kept his mouth shut. Jor didn’t need him to throw the Kazon a retort to know just how outraged he was.

Mercifully, so far, no one seemed to have been seriously injured. A Cardassian boarding party would already have cracked a few skulls, maybe dragged off a few crewmen that they liked the looks of for some extra entertainment. The Kazon just seemed to want to round all the _Voyager_ crew up with a view to getting them off the ship. At least that’s what it sounded like from the snippets she’d been able to overhear as the intruders yelled to each other.

With Tabor’s hands clutched to her arms, Jor let him guide her past the warp core and towards a huddle of a dozen engineers that the Kazon had already gathered together near the main doors. Kneeling, with their hands clasped on top of their heads, the _Voyager_ crewmen were calm and quiet. Professional. Not just the commissioned Starfleet officers like Vorik and Ashmore, but the Maquis – like Hogan and Dalby – too. Following Tabor’s lead, Jor got down to her knees beside him and raised her hands to her head.

“It’ll be OK,” Tabor repeated quietly, offering her what he no doubt hoped was a look of encouragement. But she could see the anxiety in his wide eyes. An anxiety that turned to a cold hatred when he switched his focus from her face onto the Kazon foot soldier standing behind her. A Kazon that took exception to Tabor eyeballing him.

“What are you staring at?”

Tabor clenched his jaw, saying nothing that might aggravate the man. Unfortunately, his stare had done enough.

“I asked you a question, Federation. Do you think that insolent look will scare me away? Perhaps there is something wrong with your eyes. If you like, I can fix them for you.”

Jor wanted to turn and tell the Kazon bastard to fuck off, but her better judgement prevailed. Tabor remained silent, turning his eyes downwards now, slumping his shoulders. That flash of defiance in him had passed. He looked meek. Vulnerable. This experience would bring back plenty of unpleasant memories for him too. Of a time when he’d been subjected to this kind of treatment on a regular basis.

“On your feet, all of you,” ordered a different, more authoritative Kazon voice, saving any further escalation of the situation between Tabor and the underling. “Take them to the cargo bay on deck seven,” that same voice ordered his men. “The Maj has us on route to the Hanon system. We’ll be dropping them off when we get there.”

That announcement caused a ripple of scornful laughter to emerge from the other Kazon present. None of the _Voyager_ crew dared to ask what would await them in that star system, but anxious, questioning looks passed between them, answered with shrugs and pursed lips. The fact that they were all – presumably all – still alive suggested a prison. Perhaps a labour camp. Like Gallitep or Batal on Bajor.

Herded in groups of three or four into the turbolifts, Jor made sure to keep tight to Tabor’s side. The Kazon that Tabor had glared at went to escort another trio of _Voyager_ crewmen. Unfortunately, the thug that Jor had kicked earlier was the same one now leering at her in the confines of the turbolift. Copying Tabor’s example, Jor averted her eyes from both that Kazon and his equally brutish companion. Ashmore, pushed into the lift with them, had bloodied knuckles, Jor now noticed. Presumably, he’d made contact with a Kazon head. So, she wasn’t the only one who’d made a futile attempt to resist. That made her feel less foolish, but no less angry.

They reached deck seven in no time at all, were shoved out into the corridor and driven the short distance to the cargo bay. The bridge crew were already there, most of the science staff as well, clustered together on the floor at one end of the large space. Janeway appeared dishevelled with what looked like a bruise to her cheek. Others bore cuts to their faces. A couple had minor plasma burns.

“What’s in the Hanon system?” someone whispered. The chorus of murmured replies all spoke of the same uncertainty, though one voice did utter the vaguely enlightening, “Seska wouldn’t say. Only that it’ll be our new home.” It sounded like Harry Kim. Grunted threats from the Kazon guards put an end to any further discussion. The rest of the crew were gradually loaded in among them. All except Paris, Suder, and the EMH. Suder, presumably, had been killed when that explosion had ripped through deck eight, the centre of the blast located next door to his secure quarters. The Betazoid’s passing would not be much mourned by his shipmates.

Jor leaned in close to Tabor’s side, stretching an arm across his back as they waited. And waited.  

An indeterminable time later, they felt the warp engines come online. What seemed like an eon after that and the ship dropped to impulse. Then, a distinctive hum signified that the atmospheric thrusters were engaged.

Without warning, Jor felt the shimmer of the transporter beam tug upon her molecules, and then she was on _Voyager_ no more.

###

“This is why it’s important not to rely on the UT,” Tabor was saying to Grimes, reminding the young crewman of their conversation a few weeks back. “If I didn’t speak your language, I’d be in difficulty now, wouldn’t I? The same with Neelix and Kes.”

“Yes, sir,” Grimes humbly replied, as they scoured the scrubby ground in the stinking air for anything that might be of help to their survival.  

It was the longest sentence Tabor had managed to string together since the crew’s incarceration in the cargo bay. Admittedly, talking had been strongly discouraged by the Kazon guards while the crew had still been cooped up on the ship. But, since they’d been transported to the planet’s surface, had been stripped of their comm badges, and had watched _Voyager_ fly away without them, Tabor had been worryingly quiet.

He’d still tried to offer Jor reassurances, but they were with fleeting smiles and brief touches rather than with words. His demeanour had changed when that Kazon guard had singled him out. He’d seemed to surrender at that point, not just outwardly but within himself.

But, a constant internal debate over the ‘how’s and ‘why’s that this could be happening wasn’t going to solve anything. It just used up energy. Here they were, stripped of anything useful but the clothes on their backs and the boots on their feet. Cursing the fact that events had led to this – wondering where along the chain this could have been prevented – was useless. The ‘if only’s’ were plentiful: ‘if only’ Seska’s ‘plea for help’ had been seen for what it was; ‘if only’ someone had realised why the Kazon kept targeting the secondary command processors; ‘if only’ whatever form of explosive Tierna had managed to get past a medical examination had been detected before he could set it off creating that massive energy discharge. But, it was too late to change those events. It was more productive to accept what had happened and channel every bit of energy into working out how to survive here. That was easier to think about than to actually put into practise. Jor still had to fight the urge to collapse to the ground, place her head on her knees and cry. But she was fighting it. There was a difference between acceptance and surrender.

Trudging along as part of Neelix’s search group, they’d so far found nothing that could be used as a weapon or tool, no source of fresh water, and nothing that looked edible, let alone nutritious. Not even a specimen of the ubiquitous leola root.

“Mr. Paris will bring help. I’m sure of it,” Neelix repeated. Over and over again. “My fellow Talaxians will come to our aid.”

But Tom didn’t know where the _Voyager_ crew had been taken. So, even if he’d managed to get past the Kazon ships and reach help, how would that help get to the Hanon system?

The stench of rotten eggs – hydrogen sulphide – had filled the crew’s noses from the moment they’d materialised on the dirt. But when the wind blew in from a certain direction, the odour became even more powerful. It was beginning to make Jor feel queasy. Then again, that sick feeling could be attributed to not having eaten in hours, or merely to the fact that she was reeling from the Kazon attack. From them taking her home away. They were probably, at that moment, trashing the crew quarters, the airponics bay, Janeway’s ready room with those giant ornaments...

Taking that moment to pause, Jor lifted her head and glanced around at the others in the group. They were spread out over a fairly small area, the farthest members still well within sight of her. Macormak was perhaps the only member of their group to look glummer than Tabor. But Macormak been perpetually dismal ever since Bennet’s death during that away mission with Tuvok a few months back. Hogan was relatively upbeat. Golwat, though complaining of hunger, was in good spirits otherwise. Jor didn’t know the others well enough to accurately judge how they were bearing up, but they seemed calm, at least on the surface. And she felt less afraid now herself. Or, at least, the fear that remained was on a level that she could cope with. The crew might be marooned, but at least they weren’t in chains.

With a subtle motion to get Tabor to follow her out of earshot of the others, Jor answered the quizzical look he gave her, murmuring, “You’ve been very quiet.”

“Have I?” he deflected, shrugging.

“Is anything bothering you in particular?” Jor probed. “Anything beyond the general crappiness of our situation?”

“I’m all right,” he said, his expression betraying him. “Beyond the general crappiness of the situation. Beyond the … incredulity that Janeway and Chakotay could let Seska fool them again.”

The decision-making process that had led to _Voyager_ taking the bait that Seska had dangled hadn’t filtered down to the lower decks in detail. But it seemed that the final decision to alter course had been Chakotay’s, Janeway having left it up to him. Jor supposed it had been a difficult one: to balance the risk that what Seska had said in her recorded message was true with the risk that it was another one of her lies.

The ‘good of the many’ philosophy that Tabor had favoured when Janeway and Chakotay had been left behind on what they’d named ‘New Earth’ would have had _Voyager_ ignoring Seska’s message. Jor hadn’t explicitly asked Tabor whether he thought the safety of Chakotay’s son was worth a deviation from that logic. But she was going to ask a direct question now. “What happened with that Kazon in engineering? You begged me not to provoke them and then you did just that. And then…” She let the sentence hang, inviting him to finish it for her.

Tabor halted in his stride. Jor stopped beside him. “That Kazon I stared at,” Tabor said, clenching and unclenching his jaw, “he made me feel about ten years old.”

Jor chose not to prompt further then, merely acknowledging what he’d told her with a nod and a brief touch of his shoulder. She’d suspected as much – that Tabor had experienced some kind of flashback. Respecting his silence, they resumed their slow walk across the ground, her keeping her head down to survey what lay underfoot, him – as she could see in her peripheral vision – with his head raised.

And then, in his own time, he began to explain in a wavering voice, “When I was about that age, I was assigned to a work detail under a Cardassian guard who took a particular interest in tormenting a friend of mine – an older boy who had the misfortune to be disfigured from a mining accident. When we assembled one day to return from the work area to our living quarters … in my stupidity, I stared at that Cardassian. I wanted him to see how much I hated him.” Laughing humourlessly, Tabor shook his head. “As if that would have bothered him in the slightest. So, he pulled me out of the line. Took his knife from his belt and said that if I ever looked him in the eye again, he would blind me with it.”

The tales Tabor told of his youth never failed to shock Jor in their cruelty, even though she had heard him talk of many similar happenings: beatings, periods of solitary confinement in pitch darkness, summary executions of family and neighbours. If fate had turned a different way – diverted by the tiniest fraction away from the path that Tabor’s life had indeed taken – Tabor would never have made it through the Occupation. He wouldn’t be here with her now. But then she wouldn’t be here now either, most likely.

“Knowing how they tortured Chakotay, I don’t doubt that some of the Kazon are capable of violence on the scale of the Cardassians.” Tabor continued.

“But, we’re all here in one piece,” Jor reminded him – needing to remind herself also. “Maj Cullah obviously finds it more amusing to dump us in this wilderness to see if we can survive without technology than to take us to one of their penal colonies or kill us outright. At least we have a chance here.”

“I wonder if they’ll come back and check on us,” Tabor said. “Count how many of us are still breathing in a few weeks or months.”

He stumbled then and Jor had to grab the loose material at the back of his uniform jacket to steady him. “Sorry, I wasn’t concentrating on my footing,” he said, quickly recovering his poise. “Too busy looking at the scenery. If circumstances were different, I might find this landscape beautiful – in a primeval sort of way.”

“Yeah, well, maybe we could hope that some tourists might come calling and discover us here,” Macormak sniped, listening in from a dozen paces behind.

Jor took a deep, calming breath, reflexively wrinkling her nose at the effort. Tabor clenched his jaw again and didn’t respond to the jibe. Tempers were bound to flare given the situation. Turning her eyes downwards, Jor continued to scan the ground keeping to Tabor’s elbow as he wandered along. They would cover more ground if they fanned out further, but nobody seemed to want to get beyond earshot of their comrades.

Something caught her eye. Some stringy-brown leaves that looked as if they might be attached to… She crouched, scrabbled in the dirt surrounding the leaves, and felt a surge of anticipation as she managed to unearth a measly-looking root of some kind. It wasn’t a leola root, but maybe a close cousin. Neelix might know.

“Neelix, over here,” she shouted, spying the Talaxian up by the top of the rocky ridge talking with Hogan. Neelix came running. Perhaps she should have made the call seem less urgent so as not to get his hopes up. Golwat was closing in eagerly too, as was Mulcahey.

“It’s probably nothing,” Jor told them, as they got near enough to see what she’d found.

“Nobody will thank you if it’s a primordial leola,” Tabor joked, his sentiment cheering her more than the content of his words as he helped her to her feet.

Neelix took the root from her hands, sniffed it, and was about to snap it in half when a scream pierced the air. As Neelix dropped the root and sprinted towards the source of the sound – up the rocky outcrop towards Hogan’s last location – Jor and Tabor followed with the others. Grimes was first to reach the Talaxian, with Macormak close on his heels.

“Hogan!” Neelix yelled. Receiving no reply, the Talaxian spun around to those crowding in behind him. “I asked Hogan to gather up these bones,” Neelix explained breathlessly, gesturing to the debris at the entrance of what looked like a tunnel. “Something must have attacked him. We have to mount a rescue.”

“Should we really go in there?” someone behind Jor asked. “We’ve got no weapons to defend ourselves with.”

Jor shared a look with Tabor, knowing that their two minds thought alike. Weapons or not, they had to go to Hogan’s aid. Neelix was already crouched, grabbing several of the largest pieces of bone to arm himself.

“We’re coming in with you, Neelix,” Tabor told him, restraining the Talaxian with a hand on his arm. “Wait two seconds.”

Tabor picked up another couple of the longest bones from the ground. Jor did likewise. Then, with Neelix leading the way and Grimes and Macormak forming the rear guard, Jor and Tabor moved into the tunnel. It looked constructed rather than naturally occurring at least here at its entrance. Perhaps there were cave-dwelling aliens on this world. The Kazon had never said it was uninhabited.

With no flashlights or materials to make a flame, they wouldn’t be able to go far before darkness overwhelmed them. But they hadn’t gone more than five metres before Neelix stooped to pick something up off the ground. The light still penetrated well enough for them to see what he carried as he turned around to face them.

Jor’s breath caught as she realised what it had to be. “Hogan’s uniform?”

“It looks like it,” Neelix said.

“But … where’s Hogan?”

Tabor ordered Grimes and Macormak to crouch. Their tall frames were blocking the light. “That looks like a bloodstain on the ground there,” Tabor said, dipping his hand to it.

“And a trail leads back a few paces…” Neelix slowly described, “… and then nothing.”

“Do you think … do you think something ate him?” Grimes called forward.

Unable to hold the reflex back, Jor retched, and, if it hadn’t been so long since she’d eaten, she would have vomited right there. While death was hardly unfamiliar to her, the thought of Hogan being eaten alive by some alien monster was overwhelmingly nauseating, especially thinking of all the missions he’d come through in the Maquis and on _Voyager_.

“I can’t see very well, but it looks like the tunnel narrows right down just a little further in,” Neelix told them from a few paces onwards. “It’s like a large worm hole. I’m not sure if a human would be able to fit in there.”

“An intact human,” Grimes pointed out, dry heaving himself the moment after he’d said it.

Jor pushed past Tabor and Neelix, wanting to see this narrowing down for herself. She felt around with one hand in the semi-darkness before crawling on her hands and knees. The roof of the tunnel lowered, the sides closing in proportionally.

Tabor’s hands on her waist pulled her back. “Come away from there. It’s not safe,” he said. “Whatever took Hogan might still be close by.”

Her adrenaline depleting, she accepted Tabor’s advice.

So, they shuffled back to the open air. The first piece of material in Neelix’s hands was black with a small gold area attached: a partially-shredded uniform jacket. Another piece was blue-grey: underclothes. A larger piece of black must have been Hogan’s trousers.

There’d been no body, not even a scrap of flesh or a piece of bone. But the evidence looked pretty damn conclusive. Hogan was dead.

###

By the time Neelix’s group made their rendezvous with the others, a place to make camp had been found. After what had happened to Hogan, neither Jor nor Tabor were too enamoured with the idea of moving into an enclosed area, even if this was more of an overhang at the base of a cliff than an actual cave. Air did flow through readily, and there were no obvious burrows that might conceal carnivorous creatures large enough to attack a humanoid in the way Hogan had been.

The news of his death had been met with great sorrow from everyone who’d heard Neelix tell it. Hogan had been well thought of by all and a good friend to many. B’Elanna wasn’t there to hear the news at its first issue having gone out with Harry Kim and another search party to look for food. When she and Kim did return a couple of hours or so later – in triumph for having collected not only eggs but vegetables – Chakotay broke the news to her. B’Elanna was, by her standards, admirably restrained, merely kicking at a pile of shingle and vocalising the same words Jor had been cursing with internally when she’d learned of Hogan’s fate herself.

Neelix had expressed his guilt for asking Hogan to collect the bones at the entrance to the tunnel. Jor, in turn, felt terrible for calling Neelix away to look at that stupid root. Janeway wouldn’t hear any talk of blame. Jor tried to push the self-reproach away.

A short while later, by the firelight, she sat in silence with Tabor and Dalby watching Tuvok fashion spears, a bow, and arrows out of some wood and other materials that had been collected. The Vulcan worked quietly and skilfully, seemingly oblivious to any conversation going on around him, though of course he’d be listening to every word that was said within his earshot.  

From out of the shadows, B’Elanna approached. She brought with her a couple of the cucumber-like vegetables that her search team had earlier discovered. “Share these between you,” she said, handing the vegetables to Jor. “There’s not much, but it’ll quench your thirsts a little.”

Jor did as instructed. The vegetable was mostly water in composition and the few mouthfuls did help alleviate her dry throat, but, if Chakotay’s solar stills didn’t work as planned, then they’d all be in big trouble come the morning.

“I hate enclosed spaces like this,” B’Elanna grumbled under her breath, exchanging a look with Dalby as she sat down beside him. “They don’t bring back the best of memories.”

“At least as far as we know, we’re not surrounded by tons of unstable mineral deposits,” Dalby said, without any trace of sarcasm. Like Jor, Dalby had understood B’Elanna to be referencing the Maquis mission that had been nearly fatal to Jor and the others who’d taken part in it. “I wouldn’t have objected if the Kazon had left us with some rations,” Dalby went on. “Even those goddam Starfleet MREs we had after the cave in.”

Tactfully, he stopped there. Even though B’Elanna had brought the subject up of her own accord, it would be best not to expand on it too much without her lead. B’Elanna still gave herself a hard time about the mission where she’d mistaken unstable mineral deposits for Cardassian weapons signatures: the first away mission she’d commanded for the Maquis. Jor, Tabor and Dalby had been part of her team. They’d been stuck underground for three days by a cave in and forced to dig themselves out with their bare hands. Injured during the initial fall of rocks, Jor’s condition had slowly deteriorated as the strike team’s medical supplies had been depleted. But they’d all survived, against the odds.

“Ration packs would certainly beat worms,” Jor said wryly. She’d tried a few of the disgusting, wriggling things that were found in abundance underneath loose rocks. Choking them down, she’d tried not to vomit them back up and waste them. Having once eaten insects in the Maquis didn’t make it any easier to stomach them now.

“We should keep talking to a minimum,” Chakotay called around. “Talking wastes body water.”

Dalby rolled his eyes. B’Elanna let out a sigh. But, knowing Chakotay was correct, the four of them quieted and the background chatter diminished to a subtle hum.

B’Elanna wandered away to speak – sparingly – with Ayala. Dalby left to find Gerron. As people started to lie down and shut their eyes, Tabor discreetly led Jor into a more secluded area, picking a spot to settle down into for the rest of the night. Yosa, Jarvin and Carlson would be their closest companions, positioned a half a dozen paces away. Any alien attack would have to get past those three men before reaching Jor and Tabor, and, in any case, Tuvok had some of his security officers staying awake in shifts around the perimeter. Although further from the fire, in this nook they were sheltered from the breeze that agitated the air in the more open area of the overhang.

Tabor lowered himself to the ground. “Come here,” he said softly, inviting Jor into his arms, catching onto her reluctance and reminding her, “Janeway insisted that the crew huddle together for warmth. Who are we to disobey the Captain?”

Jor managed a small smile, sitting beside him and resting her head on his shoulder. He wrapped an arm around her, pulling her closer and leaning back against a large boulder. Thinking on it for a moment, Jor relaxed, throwing an arm out across his chest, choosing to take full advantage of the circumstances. Privacy would be sorely lacking as the _Voyager_ crew struggled to eke out an existence in this wilderness. And she and Tabor were merely sharing body heat as ordered. Although the kiss that he planted in her hair probably wouldn’t be considered part of Starfleet survival strategy, as much as it did warm her insides. And Janeway’s exact words had been ‘huddle together in _groups_ ’ rather than pair up with a romantic partner…

“We’ve been spoiled on _Voyager_ with soft beds and environmental controls,” Tabor murmured wearily, fidgeting and jolting her as a result.

“You make a reasonable pillow when you keep still,” she quipped, trying to make some light of it. It was true though. In the Maquis they’d been used to sleeping rough in various climates. On occasion, they’d had to live off the land, finding drinkable water and edible plants. Jor had never personally hunted for food as a Maquis, but, on one particularly disastrous mission, Meyer and Ayala had tracked and killed a wild deer-like creature to sustain the strike team until rescue could arrive. But they’d always had tools: tricorders, maps, weapons. Even when that tech had been cobbled together or second-rate it had been worth a lot more than a few wooden spears and a solar still made from a dead man’s uniform.

The dull throbbing of her toes that had been niggling at her all day, forced itself to the front of her awareness now that other distractions had been removed. As much as she didn’t want to move out of Tabor’s embrace, Jor decided it might be wise to take off her right boot to inspect the extremity. Not that there was much that could be done to treat the damage.

“Those Kazon have unbelievably hard shin bones,” she said with a sigh, drawing her arm back from Tabor’s chest, stretching forwards to free her foot from its coverings. “But I still wish I’d kicked him even harder.”

“You took me by surprise, doing that,” Tabor said. “You’ve always been so in control when we’re in a fight.”

“Well, I never had a Cardassian so up close to me like that the Kazon was. Except for … that first time,” she reminded him. Wincing as her boot came off, Jor flexed her toes – they all seemed to move despite the pain – then pulled off her sock to gingerly palpate them.

Tabor drew himself upright behind her. “Do you think you actually broke something?”

“No,” she told him. “My toes feel a little swollen, but everything’s moving properly. They’re probably bruised, but I can’t really tell.”

Feeling the chill of the air on her bare skin, she quickly put the sock and, with more difficulty, the boot back on.

“I’m not sure I’ll be able to sleep,” she said, leaning back in to Tabor once more.

“We should try to get a nap at least,” he whispered, the tiredness becoming even more evident in his voice. “How long have we been awake now? Close your eyes.”

There was no answer to his question. Time had passed without measure since they’d been forced out of engineering. But about twenty hours had gone by from the time they’d reported to their posts for their shift to when the Kazon had boarded.

Jor tried to drift off for a good few minutes – she’d slept in far more uncomfortable positions in the past – but, with her heavy-lidded eyes shut, the echoes of Hogan’s agonised scream seemed louder. The reality that another of their friends was gone forever hadn’t yet fully sunk in. It probably wouldn’t for a while. She shivered, giving in to the guilt she knew Hogan wouldn’t want her to feel. “If I hadn’t found that stupid root and called for Neelix, Hogan might not have been taken,” she mumbled. To make it worse, Neelix had determined that the plant belonged to a family of poisonous perennial herbs. It was utterly useless to them.

Tightening his grip on her, Tabor inhaled deeply, paused and then released the breath more slowly. “What could Neelix have done unarmed against a lifeform that can apparently eat a man whole and spit out his clothing? Besides, anyone of us could have seen that plant and called for Neelix’s attention.”

As true as that was, it didn’t make Jor feel much better.

A commotion broke out then around the farthest fire in their line of sight. Chakotay’s easily recognisable silhouette was visible gesticulating to a smaller, female figure. Voices were raised. Another figure – Tuvok – appeared, heading purposefully towards the three Maquis closest to Jor and Tabor. Jor tensed, fidgeting through Tabor’s embrace into a more upright position to observe better. His chin soon hovered above her shoulder.

“Crewman Jarvin, please come with me,” Tuvok ordered.

“Something wrong, sir?” Jarvin asked, springing to his feet.

“Neelix and Kes left the camp and have failed to return,” came Tuvok’s reply, the Vulcan already moving away to approach another huddle of crewmen. “I am assembling a search party.”

Yosa and Carlson had also risen to stand as Tuvok spoke, their backs to Jor and Tabor. “Can we help, Lieutenant?” one of them - it was Yosa’s voice – called out anxiously.

“Remain where you are and stay calm,” Tuvok instructed them. “No one else is to leave the camp.”

It was one thing after another. Her stomach tied in knots, her already sunken heart beating harder in her chest, Jor slumped back against Tabor. “Now, I definitely won’t be able to get any sleep.”

###

By the afternoon of their first full day on the planet, now on friendly terms with the sentient but primitive natives, things seemed to be looking up for the marooned _Voyager_ crew. Tabor nodded to himself as he plodded along in the long, strung-out line of crewmen and their native companions; it was about time the universe gave them a break.

Despite concentrating on his footing on the uneven path, he couldn’t stop his mind from straying to the activities that he should have been doing on this day – or around about now. The invitation he’d extended to Gerron for another game of springball had been accepted. While Tabor had found socialising with his young compatriot hard work in the past, he was now finding increasing enjoyment in Gerron’s company, and he knew that Gerron appreciated spending time with a fellow Bajoran – someone who could empathise with what Gerron been through as a child. Dalby, Chakotay, and some of the other Maquis had always made themselves available for Gerron to talk to, but they could never fully appreciate the horror of the Occupation and the effect that could have on a person.

More frustrating was the fact that Jor had been scheduled to take another piloting lesson with Tom in a few days’ time: another step further along a path that had taken great courage for her to start upon. She was finally starting to confront and take advantage of aspects of her past that, to protect herself, she’d been denying had ever existed. Then, back in engineering, that Kazon bastard had jabbed her in the back with a phaser and scared her so much that she’d done something Tabor had never seen her do before: she’d completely lost it. It had taken every iota of self-control Tabor possessed not to lunge for the Kazon himself, but not reacting to such provocation had been hardwired into him from an early age.  

The excitement of Kes and Neelix’s rescue had happened away from Tabor and Jor’s presence. Neither of them had been selected by Captain Janeway for the additional search team she’d assembled to go after Chakotay and Tuvok’s rescue party. Through the mostly sleepless night, past dawn and into the morning, Tabor and Jor had stayed at the camp with the majority of the crew, watching helplessly as baby Naomi ailed in her mother’s arms, and waiting anxiously for the senior officers to return.

Tabor had seen enough sickly infants and frightened mothers in his youth to last a lifetime. If he’d believed it would work, he would have petitioned the Prophets that this would not be another child denied a life by Cardassian wickedness. But, he left the praying to Gerron, and, to his shame, tried to ignore the noise of the baby’s listless cries.

Then, when those sent out had all returned safely, the planet had had to go and start spewing lava and shaking the ground under the camp, forcing them to pick themselves up and make a run for it.

But making friends with the aliens would mark a real turn of fortunes, Tabor hoped. The aliens – akin in their cultural development to the ancient cave dwellers of prehistoric Bajor or Earth – knew the terrain, would know where to find fresh water, food, and other shelter. That knowledge would be a huge advantage to the _Voyager_ crew going forward.        

And then, as they navigated a sprawling rock formation on the way to – presumably – safer ground, _Voyager_ itself appeared in the distant sky accompanied by the low rumble of its atmospheric thrusters. Tabor might have thought he was hallucinating from dehydration if it wasn’t for the fact that every other person standing on that rocky ridge had looked up, gasping or pointing upwards in shock. The natives must have thought it was a giant flying demon descended from the heavens. Chakotay and Kes tried to calm them, to communicate that (if the aliens didn’t already realise from seeing its first landing) this was the vessel from which the one hundred and fifty newest inhabitants of their planet had come.

Of course, depending on who was in command of the ship, _Voyager_ ’s arrival might indeed spell the doom of those one hundred and fifty and their native allies. The giant flying demon analogy might be very appropriate.

Tabor turned to Jor who stood immediately behind him in the line.

She looked uncertain, reflecting the expression that he felt on his own face. “Do you think Cullah’s changed his mind?” she said.

“And come back to finish the job?” Tabor finished.

“We’re sitting ducks here if it’s the Kazon flying the ship.”

“If it’s the Kazon, then we’d be sitting ducks wherever we were.”

Others around them were more optimistic.

“It must be Paris and the Talaxians,” exclaimed Grimes, a couple of positions along the line next to Neelix.

“I said Tom would save the day,” Neelix cried.

“Are they landing the ship?”

“There’s so much seismic activity in the area, would that be wise?”

“If it’s Paris then why would he land the ship? Why not just park it in orbit and beam us up from there?”

“Who says he’s going to actually land?”

“I can’t see _Voyager_ anymore, can you?”

After a further few minutes of such speculation – the ship having loomed large and then disappeared over their heads, the senior staff trying in vain to invoke a sense of calm – another round of gasps was heard as three uniformed Talaxians materialised on the ridge near to Neelix. _Voyager_ ’s morale officer nearly fell off the edge in his rush to reach them, arms outstretched in joy and relief.

The first Talaxian to accept Neelix’s wild embrace managed to extricate himself to move towards the Captain and loudly announce (his words translated through a Starfleet UT), “I am Eldax, second deputy to Commander Paxim of the Prema Two colony. I’m pleased to inform you that _Voyager_ has been reclaimed from the Kazon-Nistrim and is under the control of your officer Paris. Please stand by for transport.” Only snippets more could be heard from Eldax and his Talaxian comrades as they were drowned out by the barrage of questions yelled at them and more excited chatter from the natives.

“We boarded … killed some…”

“Cullah … took the escape pods, and…”

“Paris said that … in a shuttle...”

Neelix’s relief was shared in full by every member of the crew. Tabor grabbed Jor around the waist and hugged her tightly. Chell punched the air. Henley’s celebration involved a torrent of well-meant profanities before she remembered that young ears were in the vicinity.        

“Settle down, people,” Janeway’s voice in full command mode cut through the noise, finally subduing the clamour for the most part. Tabor relinquished his hold on Jor, accepting a hearty handshake from Dalby and waving across to Chell and Yosa. But, as the initial flush of relief left his system, he was left wanting more information: specifically, what had happened to Seska? The thirst for that knowledge was quickly pushing his gratitude and elation into the background. It sounded as if _Voyager_ ’s escape pods had been launched, the retaking of the ship had resulted in deaths, something had happened with a shuttle…

The Talaxian delegation started to pass out comm badges. The Captain received one first. She then, after an exchange with the lead Talaxian, started directing the distribution of the rest. At least that’s what it looked like she was doing. It was difficult to see.

“Engineering and operational staff first,” Janeway said loudly above a resurgence of sound. “And be calm, people. We’re all getting out of here shortly.”

The Captain dematerialised soon after she said those words, along with B’Elanna, Harry, and Sam Wildman with the baby.

“We can see who Paris likes the best,” Dalby quipped without malice.  

“If I was Paris,” Henley shot back, good-naturedly, “retaking the ship after the Kazon had trashed it, I’d want every damn engineer I could lock on to up there in a heartbeat.”

And Henley made a good point. Beyond the jubilation of the rescue, there was a lot of hard work to be done.

“ _Voyager_ had taken a battering even before the Kazon boarded,” Tabor added.

“But, with a little time and effort, the ship can be fixed,” said Jor.

Parts could be replaced. Unlike people. Unlike Hogan.

So, where was Seska? Was she a prisoner in _Voyager_ ’s brig? The ship and crew would never be safe if they carried that snake in their midst all the way to the Alpha Quadrant. If he’d been nearer to the Talaxians, Tabor would have asked them outright what they knew, but he wasn’t going to lose his decorum and yell. Not yet, anyway.

Receiving a handful of comm badges from Henley, Tabor passed one to Jor, took one for himself and gave the rest to Dalby.

“Only a day without it, but I’m so glad to have it back,” Jor said, fixing the badge to her jacket as Tabor simultaneously attached his badge to his own.

Every ten seconds or so, another small group of crewmen would beam up, but none of them between Tabor and the Talaxians, which would allow him to move close enough to speak with them. Two groups had gone. Then three. Surely, the transporter beam would lock onto him soon.

Tabor reached for Jor’s arm at that point. She looked at him curiously and then understanding showed in her eyes. When they left the planet’s surface, they would make sure they were together.

###

They materialised on the pad with Dalby, Swinn and Golwat, the Bolian immediately falling to her knees and kissing the floor. Beyond that, the first thing Tabor noticed was the smell: no more volcanic gases. He filled his lungs with the clean, filtered air. The Talaxian operating the transporter was accompanied by another pair who handed out canteens of water by the room’s exit doors. The newly arrived crewmembers reached for the drinks urgently. Jor reminded Tabor to take it easy as he drained one canteen then took another; rehydrating too quickly could be dangerous. Though, judging by the tang to it, this was electrolytically-balanced rehydration solution not plain water.

“If you’d move along please,” the transporter operator said impatiently. “We’ve already locked onto the next group.”

“Do you know what happened to Seska?” Tabor called back to the Talaxians as he paused at the exit. Receiving a blank stare from all three, he elaborated, “Maj Cullah’s Cardassian … woman.”

“She’s dead. Killed during the attack to reclaim the ship.”

Hearing those words, spoken so matter-of-factly, Tabor froze. He could barely think to process the news at first, let alone command his mouth to move in reply – to ask for further information. He felt a hand on his arm, but couldn’t take his eyes from the nearest Talaxian’s casual gaze to see who that the hand belonged to. Though he knew who the hand belonged to.

As six more officers materialised on the transporter pad, stepped off with happy chatter and lunged for the awaiting refreshments, the hand began to tug Tabor’s elbow. “Hey, let’s make some room in here,” Jor said softly.

Letting her nudge him into the corridor, he shook his head, blinking, replaying the statement. Seska was dead. It was the best outcome he could have hoped for, and yet… Part of him had wanted to see the bitch incarcerated. To gloat at her.

But she wouldn’t have remained in the brig for long. Like Suder she’d have been put in secure, comfortable quarters, not left to rot behind a force field, there to meet the stares of the curious like some museum exhibit.

From his position in the corridor at Tabor’s other side, Dalby called to the Talaxians through the open doorway. “Do you know any details? Was she shot by your guys?”

“Sorry, friend,” a Talaxian voice responded. “We were the rear guard. Missed most of the real action. Our comrades up on the bridge will know more. Or ask your Lieutenant Paris.”

“We have to get to engineering,” Jor said, as more arrivals filed past them to head for the turbolifts. “B’Elanna will know what happened to Seska. And we’ll have work to do.”

Dalby took his leave then. Tabor took a few more sips of his drink, willing the shock out of his system. Jor was right. They had work to do. And he hadn’t missed the subtext. _Don’t make a scene here; you’ll regret it later._

So, still numb, feeling not the sense of triumph he might have expected to, he nodded to her, managed a tight smile, and they followed the crowd.  

###

Janeway peered at him askance from behind her desk.

“I’d like permission to view the body,” Tabor reiterated, rephrased. “Just for a minute. Not to pay my respects. I’m happy to admit that I wouldn’t be there out of respect for her. It would be out of respect for myself, something I feel I need to do because, as a Bajoran…” He fumbled over the words, his pre-rehearsed speech gone awry under the Captain’s piercing stare.

“Seska’s betrayal affected you more deeply – more personally, perhaps – than it did some others,” Janeway finished, comprehension beginning to show in her softening expression.

“I’d not want to belittle how anyone else felt about it, Ma’am … Captain,” Tabor told her, when it became clear she was waiting for him to continue explaining himself. “But, yes, I have carried a weight with me this past year. The weight of the way she insulted all Bajorans by taking on the face that she did, and the guilt that, as a Bajoran, I didn’t see through her lies in all the time she was with us.”

Sighing, the Captain broke eye contact for the first time in their exchange, turning her gaze downwards for a brief moment. “I think I can understand that. In a way.”

“And, I’d feel some closure, I think, if I could see Seska as she is now.”

“A dead Cardassian,” Janeway stated.

“Yes,” Tabor confirmed, just as plainly.

Without further deliberation, Janeway gave a nod. “I don’t have any objections, Ensign. You can make arrangements with the Doctor.”

Taking her grim smile and the return of her attention to the computer in front of her to indicate his dismissal, Tabor thanked her, turned on his heel and exited the ready room as fast as he felt protocol would allow.

In the turbolift, he pressed his comm badge. “Tabor to Jor.”

_“I’m here. Did she agree?”_

“She did. Meet me outside sickbay?”

_“I’ll be there shortly.”_

He waited in the corridor, not stepping close enough to the sickbay doors to activate their opening. In the three days since Tom and the Talaxians had rescued the rest of the _Voyager_ crew, the EMH and Kes had been busy treating the various minor injuries that the crew had picked up on Hanon IV and during the Kazon attack. According to Kes, the Doctor’s workload had now returned to normal. If only that were true for the engineering team, still up to their noses in repairs. The Captain was insistent that duties were arranged to give everyone as much opportunity to rest as possible – that the non-essential, more ‘cosmetic’ repairs be put aside until later. But Tabor had just come off a sixteen hour shift, and here he was using his much needed sleeping time to visit the corpse of his enemy, roping Jor into it with him.

Jor arrived, as promised, not a minute later. Tabor hadn’t asked the Captain whether Jor might be permitted to accompany him. But, to his mind, Janeway hadn’t specifically _prohibited_ any bystanders. In any case, having Jor along as he spoke with the EMH would be a comfort. And if she just happened to hang around for the viewing, well … was Janeway really going to keelhaul anyone for it?

Jor reached for his hand, giving it a quick squeeze. “You’re sure you want to do this?”

They’d already debated the pros and cons the previous evening before knowing if the Captain would even give permission. B’Elanna had told them that Chakotay had paid such a visit to sickbay on returning to the ship at Hanon IV. That had given Tabor the idea to ask for the opportunity himself. To see Seska one last time – as she looked now, a Cardassian – might give a further resolution to the shame, guilt, and hatred that he’d been feeling since Seska’s exposure as a Cardassian agent.

“I’m certain,” Tabor replied, wishing he could keep hold of Jor’s hand through the next five minutes. As much as he wanted to proceed, he wasn’t relishing the prospect, unsure of how he’d react. As Jor released him, he stepped up to the sickbay doors and, when they hissed open, he walked on through with her at his side.

###

“This is a sickbay, not a funeral home,” blathered the hologram, earning himself a pleading stare from Kes and a withering glare from Jor.

Tabor could just about find the humour in the sarcastic response given to his simple request, but he had little patience for it at that precise moment.

“If you could just get the body out of stasis for two minutes, I’d be very appreciative,” Tabor said, as evenly as he could manage. “If it’s not _too_ much trouble.”

The Doctor cleared his holographic throat, and, when he spoke again, his tone was more compassionate. “Of course, Ensign. I’ll fetch it for you immediately,” it – he – said, turning to his assistant. “Kes?”

The young Ocampan smiled patiently, accessing the main computer console such that, a moment later, the shimmer of a transporter beam landed a zippered body bag onto the leftmost biobed. “Would you like me to leave?” Kes asked, her open gaze directed at Tabor.

“That’s quite all right, Kes,” Tabor told her gently. “We’ll be out of here momentarily.” He took a fortifying breath, locking eyes with Jor and drawing strength from her before moving across the room to the head of the biobed alone. “If you would Doctor,” Tabor said, gesturing to the seal on the bag.

The hologram complied, moving up the other side of the bed and slowly lowering the top section of the zipper.

As they’d learned months ago – though Tabor had not seen the results with his own eyes – Seska had been in the process of restoring her Cardassian physiology. The stony face revealed had the spoon-shaped brow indent common to all Cardassians. The bony ridges around her eyes and running vertically up the sides of her forehead were less pronounced than on a typical Cardassian face though, when taken with the neck ridges, definitely indicative that this woman belonged to that race. But the skin, even in death, was of a much warmer tone than in any Cardassian. Likewise her hair wasn’t dark brown or black as in every Cardassian woman Tabor had ever seen before. And it was more ginger than the shade Seska had worn in the guise of a Bajoran. Quite garishly red. The bitch always had to make a statement.

“Are you all right?” Jor called across.

Closing his eyes for a moment, Tabor then glanced up and aside. “She doesn’t look so dangerous now, does she?” he said, avoiding a direct answer yet reaching out all the same.

Jor seized on the implied invitation and came to his side, peering down with a knitted brow. “She can’t hurt anyone again. She’s no longer a threat to us.”

“I do feel safer now,” Tabor said truthfully, lowering his gaze once more. “And…” He paused a few moments to gather his thoughts. “I am glad to have seen her like this. If I have to remember her at all, I want it to be like this. Powerless.” Snorting a humourless laugh, he couldn’t resist adding, “And with that wicked tongue of hers silenced.”  

Seska had finally got what she deserved. She was, as Jor had said, no longer a threat to them. At least not physically. But, despite those facts, Tabor didn’t feel the lightening of spirit that he’d hoped for on acknowledging them. Though he was losing the most recent focus of his hatred towards Cardassians, the underlying loathing still remained. There, in front of him, was a Cardassian. The only good kind of Cardassian; a dead one. The first Cardassian – appearing as such – that Tabor had seen up close in a long time. And even though all the Cardassians he’d faced as a Maquis – and most that he’d encountered in person on Occupied Bajor – had been male, seeing this representative of that cruel people brought out a bitterness in him that he didn’t wish to have surface.

From the corner of his eye, he was aware of Jor’s stare upon him. Having seen what he’d wanted to – needed to – Jor would want to get him back to her quarters to talk things over before they got a few hours of much needed sleep. The trouble was, he couldn’t honestly tell her that he felt unburdened as he’d hoped. He could lie to save her concern, hoping that, in time, he would feel that relief. But to lie even once would be a dangerous precedent to set.

Unfortunately, Seska was – had always been – merely the tip of the iceberg. For the last year, Seska had been the face that Tabor put upon what he hated most. Before her exposure as a spy, when he’d visualised the evil of the Cardassians, he’d focused on Moset, the so-called Doctor who’d killed his brother and grandfather. And before Moset, as a young boy, it had been Darhe’el, the Gul in command of the Gallitep labour camp.  

For now, Tabor needed to say something. “She’s no longer a threat to us,” he echoed, affording Jor a small smile and motioning for the Doctor to seal up the bag. “What will you do with her body?” Tabor asked the hologram.

“I await the Captain’s instructions,” the hologram said. “But I can’t imagine we’ll be giving Seska a hero’s send off.”

Unlike Hogan, who’d been given the standard Starfleet funeral service. Hogan himself might have taken issue with all the flags and whistles, but it had been meant as a tribute to his service. And even Suder’s brief, perfunctory funeral had at least been attended by the ship’s three most senior officers, Neelix, and Kes. There’d been whispers that a few others might wish to pay their respects to the Betazoid whose heroic actions had been so critical in the retaking of the ship. But, in the end, it seemed no one else wished to incur the disapproval of their less forgiving colleagues by showing Suder that courtesy.

“I’d like to be informed when she’s – it’s – gone from the ship,” Tabor said, directing his request to Kes, hoping to avoid any further smart remarks from the EMH. “Assuming that it’s not to remain in stasis, and that the information isn’t privileged, of course.”

“I’ll let you know as soon as I’m able,” the young Ocampan assured him.

And so, it was over. Tabor backed away from the biobed, watched the bag dematerialise. The Doctor started huffing and puffing over some test results he needed to examine to determine just how the native medicine that had helped baby Naomi’s breathing difficulties back on Hanon IV had worked. Tabor didn’t want to spend any longer in sickbay regardless. If hotfooting it out of there meant that he had less time to work out what he was going to say to Jor in the privacy of her quarters, then so be it.

“Ready to go?” Jor asked.

Tabor nodded. “We’re all done here.”

###

She gazed around her quarters. The small space that she could call her own, though she gladly shared it with Tabor. It looked lived in. Had been. That clean smell that had greeted her the first time she’d set foot inside was no longer present. Instead, the faint mingled scents of cleaning products, personal hygiene items (his as well as hers), and fresh linen added to that ‘lived in’ quality.

By a stroke of fortune, her quarters had been overlooked by the Kazon when they’d moved through the ship leaving a trail of vandalism in their wake. Aside from where items had been tossed from their usual locations when the inertial dampeners had failed to fully compensate, everything was tidy and, most importantly, unsoiled.

Tabor’s quarters had fared less well, though better than most. The Kazon intruders appeared to have genuinely appreciated the painting of Bajor that hung on the wall above his bed. It remained there, undamaged. The holo-image that Darwin had posthumously given had thankfully been tossed or had, perhaps, fallen under the sofa, and was also intact. But Tabor’s bed had been slept in (there was Kazon hair on the pillows), eaten in (judging by the detritus between the sheets), and, most bizarrely, exhibited phaser burns to the headboard. Some of Tabor’s clothes were missing from the closet. Others had been shredded and the pieces strewn about like confetti. And, worst of all, the bathroom was smeared in filth. Perhaps if the idiots had spent more time concentrating on defending their prize rather than defiling it, they’d not have lost _Voyager_ to a lone (albeit strategically gifted) Starfleet officer and a bunch of Talaxians.

Jor had helped Tabor make a start on clearing the place up. But, with that entailing a good few hours of scrubbing and scouring – even with Starfleet cleaning technology at their disposal – and barely enough hours in the day just to work, eat and sleep, Tabor was taking up temporary residence with her on deck four. Given the number of nights he’d spent with her in the weeks leading up to the hijack of the ship, it wasn’t much of an adjustment for either of them to make.  

It felt like the end of another chapter in her life – their lives. Seska was gone, the threat that she posed was no longer hanging over their heads. Suder – a lingering reminder of the violent end that had befallen their friend Darwin – was also dead. Hogan – another part of their old lives as Maquis fighters – had passed on too. _Voyager_ would soon be beyond Kazon space. Beyond the reach of the Vidiians. That marked a natural end to the first stage of the journey.

“You’re looking a little lost,” Tabor called through the open bathroom door. “Faraway.”

Jor hadn’t noticed that the whine of the sonic shower had abated. “I’m pretty sure I know exactly where I am,” she replied lightly. “That’s what I was contemplating: where we’ve gotten to.”

“‘We’ as in you and I?”

“Partly. But also all of us. _Voyager_. Not just in terms in where our location lies on a star chart, but…”

“In what we’ve become?” Free now of the grease and grime that had covered him head to toe by the end of today’s double shift, Tabor – dressed for bed – came into the living area and headed for the replicator.

“I was just thinking through what’s changed – what happened back at Hanon IV and more generally since we’ve been in this Quadrant.”

“I wonder what our friends back in the Alpha Quadrant would say if they knew of everything we’d been through. Of how we’ve all changed.”

With a steaming mug of tea in each hand, Tabor came over to join her on the sofa. Jor took the mug he held out for her, sniffing and not recognising the blend.

“Vulcan spice tea number seven,” Tabor explained. “I’m on a mission to try them all.” Like her, he was still fascinated by the range of offerings that the replicator could produce.

“But none us of have changed fundamentally,” Jor said, picking up the previous thread.

Tabor nodded. “No. Not even Henley who’s almost had a personality transplant on the surface. But at her core, she’s the same.”

“You think she’s getting bored of Pablo?” Henley hadn’t mentioned any such thing to Jor, and Jor was usually the first to know – whether she wished to or not – when Henley had a dilemma.

“Maybe. I’ve seen her eyes wandering.”

“That doesn’t mean her legs will follow. Becoming attached doesn’t mean losing the ability to spot a handsome man.” Tabor frowned at that, but Jor was glad she’d said it nevertheless.

“I don’t like to think what Li Paz or Meyer would make of the new Chakotay,” Tabor said, clearly still preferring to think on that than on Jor’s previous point.

Chakotay was, at times, almost unrecognisable from the fierce captain who’d led his Maquis cell on countless missions in and around the DMZ. Though it was probably the ‘old’ Chakotay that they were now seeing on _Voyager_ : Chakotay as he’d been during his prior Starfleet career – before the murders of his family. Janeway had assigned her anthropology-loving first officer the delicate task of bidding farewell to the Hanon IV natives while _Voyager_ was made ready for departure. Chakotay seemed to thrive on such assignments. Li Paz and Meyer would likely be left wide-eyed by that.  

“I could see them applying the word ‘neutered’ to him,” Jor said. And that was one of the politer terms that came to mind. “Not that I personally believe it’s a fair assessment given the circumstances.”

Snorting a laugh, Tabor set down his tea and picked up a handful of PADDs from the table, rifling through until he found the one he wanted, and replacing the rest in a neat stack. “Neither of those two would have served under Janeway.”

“I go days without thinking about them all now,” Jor admitted, a pang of guilt hitting her right in the gut as she once again glanced around at the relative luxury in which she and Tabor were living, keenly aware that if fate had not intervened to throw them halfway across the Galaxy and land them on _Voyager_ , they would likely not be enjoying the relationship that they now did.

“So do I. But that’s how we have to be in order to keep moving forward. Not forget about them, but … be OK with not bringing them to mind on a daily basis.”

Almost as if they’d died. Like her family.

Tabor fingered the PADD in his hands, his head bowed but his eyes turned up to her. “I thought I’d read for ten minutes before bed. If you don’t mind.”

Something constructive to focus her mind on might be a good idea. Jor smiled her agreement, telling him, “Then I’ll do the same.” Looking though the stack of PADDs herself, she chose the one that held the copy of Hikaru Sulu’s _Judgment and Decision Making for Helmsmen_ , a classic text according to Tom Paris. A lot of the information contained in the book seemed basic common sense, but there were aspects to space flight that didn’t apply in low altitude atmospheric flying, so Jor still found it useful to browse through. “ _Robots from the Centre of the Earth_?” she quipped, leaning across to see what Tabor was reading.

“No,” he said with mock indignation. “ _A History of Earth Cinema_ , actually. It’s a classic. A must read. At least according to –”

“Tom Paris?” They laughed in unison when Jor held up her own PADD for Tabor to read the title page and note the subject matter, settling down then to study their respective books in easy silence. Tabor would perhaps learn something he could apply to his new interest in holoprogramming. Jor hoped that by continuing with her piecemeal approach to pilot training she would eventually come to enjoy the process instead of merely enduring it.      

The most important thing was that they were together. And, as _Voyager_ continued on the long journey towards the Alpha Quadrant, from now on, more than ever, they would make the best of it.


End file.
